


Stepping into the Unknown

by Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25859161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron/pseuds/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron
Summary: Bucky was gone. Off to serve his country and all that jazz, and Steve would have been fine. He would have been okay on his own, except he got sick. He always got sick, but this time, somehow, it lead to him falling through some magical portal and landing in another realm.
Relationships: Loki & Steve Rogers, Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Stepping into the Unknown

Steve was hungry.

Scrap that, he was starving.

He’d thought he was hard done by before, when the idea of a job was almost otherworldly as he lay there trying not to give in to whatever sickness he’d been diagnosed with this time. But no. After kicking the flu to the curb and standing on his own two feet long enough he could actually go out and scrounge for a job it turned out that hard done by just hadn’t made itself clear to Steve. So it had thrust another war onto him.

A literal war too.

From looking at himself in the mirror he knew he wouldn’t be seeking the war out on his own two feet. He was too small to even be considered 21 by the guy at the bakers, and Steve had been going there since he was three. To a guy looking for the fittest men of age in America Steve would never get past putting his name forwards. So he hadn’t really thought about how else the war might impact his life.

To Steve, he wasn’t fighting upfront, where the real war was, so why should he think his everyday life be affected? It turned out that damned war was in every aspect Steve could think of. From the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep all he saw was the impact of the war. 

Jobs were aplenty now men were going overseas, but since there were still enough on American soil that employers weren’t desperate they still didn’t give Steve a second look. So no job to go to just yet meant that Steve spent most of his morning huddled up in bed listening to Bucky yoller out their nearest window to the kids that constantly thought hitting a ball off their window was amusing.

“They’re gonna yell back at you one day,” Steve mumbled from beneath his pillow. His feet were aching from the cold. At least, he hoped it was the cold.

“Let ‘em,” Bucky muttered, cursing one last time at the last bozo scampering away. “I swear, the sooner we get a board on this window the better.” 

Bucky had been going on about that window since they moved into this shabby place. They couldn’t afford the rent on Steve’s old apartment, the one he’d shared with his Ma, and since the only source of income they had was from Bucky and whatever small change Steve managed to scrounge up that month moving had become inevitable.

Their apartment was actually alright. What wasn’t was that window that was the bane of Bucky’s life. It was too thin for Bucky’s liking. One hard whack, he’d always say, and the glass would shatter like, well, like glass. Not to mention they let in a God awful draft. One that left the pair of them huddled in Steve’s bed at the edge of the room more nights than not. 

A board over it wasn’t a bad idea. It would certainly help keep the draft out. But, “You know if we put a board up the landlord’s gonna think we’ve got something to hide. He’s already called the cops on us.”

“He can call the freaking Fuhrer for all I care so long as I get a decent nights sleep.” Speaking of, Bucky was more than happy to drag his own blanket over to shield their bare feet as he slid in next to Steve. “Besides, didn’t you hear, he’s been drafted. His wife’s been left with looking after the tenancy, and she’s a real doll.”

“Oh yeah?” 

Bucky hummed in agreement, “I think we could even get out of paying rent this month if we play our cards right.”

“You mean if you bat your eyelashes at her,” Steve teased, snorting, “Charmer.” The pair of them knowing that Bucky was all talk no action. Despite being good with words Bucky’s Ma had raised a true gentleman. 

Didn’t stop him from defending his so called honour however when it was questioned, “You know I’m charming,” Bucky said, elbowing Steve gently, Steve trying not to fixate too much on just why it hurt more than usual. “Say I’m charming.”

“Nope.” 

With their landlord drafted, this change, while good in a way, was still change, and still proof of how the war was messing up Steve’s life. Breakfast was further proof, Steve and Bucky both scraping the bottoms of their plates for whatever crumbs they could find from their meagre meal.

Rationing, while something they’d heard about, had started taking place. At least among the poorer parts of New York. The bakers couldn’t afford to appeal to more high end stores for supplies, and both were showing delays in shipments as more men working farms were sent off to war. The small stamps they could afford didn’t mean much, and didn’t stretch as far as the government promised. Already, despite having bought their tiny loaf of bread just two days ago, there was none left to make Bucky a sandwich, anything, for his lunch.

“I won’t be too long today,” Bucky said, hanging about the door once he’d changed into his work clothes. They too were looking a bit run down, more holes than actual cloth after hours and hours of heavy lifting. Still, Bucky didn’t let it show, going so far as to block the doorway without a shiver so the brisk wind wouldn’t further freeze their tiny home. “I think the boss is all giving us a half day after the Andrews incident.”

Steve made a face, “Try not to go poking for it. I know how morbid you can get.”

Bucky saluted, Steve just knowing his friend would be doing his utmost to find that missing toe now he’d been warned against it. It was just how Bucky was. Just like, two seconds after the door closed, he came back in to give Steve a hug and a warning to, “‘Not get into trouble today. If I hear one word of your name being spread around you’d better believe I’m laying into you.”

“Noted,” Steve said. “But you know I don’t go looking for fights.” 

“Sure you don’t,” Bucky snorted, squeezing Steve’s shoulder one last time before finally going to work.

With little food and no money, there wasn’t a lot Steve could do with his day. He went out looking for a job first thing. He tried the usual, the bakery, the grocers, even the clinic, but they didn’t want him, all of them knowing he was unreliable due to health reasons. 

After that, he went back to grab some paintings, seeing if the local tea shop would want a nice landscape to go with their whole ambiance thing. When that worked out, he tried the higher end shops, and eventually got his last bit of money shining shoes and listening to the men above talk about the war.

When he went home he saw dance halls beginning to open, soldiers carousing girls into a quickie. Posters with Uncle Sam stared down at him. People closed up shop before it got dark, turning each and every light off just in case tonight was the night the Germans decided to fly over New York.

War. War. War.

He closed the door with a firm thump behind him, turning the locks and double checking just in case. He heard jingling behind him, which meant Bucky hadn’t been lying about that half day. By this time he was usually in the bath, washing off the stench of sweat and oil. If he was in the kitchen at all it was because he’d already soaked for as long as the water stayed warm.

“I swear if I have to hear one more story about basic training I’m gonna scream,” Steve sighed, turning to see Bucky counting out coins. “You alright?” Since he didn’t look it.

There was no cheery grin on his face, or curse on his lips about something that had happened today. Steve actually had to think back to his own time away from Bucky to make sure that yes, he hadn’t gotten into any fights, so there was no reason for this silent treatment. 

Then he saw Bucky’s hands, how they shook as he counted another coin onto their small stack, and the paper beneath it.

“Is that-?” It couldn’t be. They couldn’t.

“Came this morning.” He tried for a smile, “We really should start reading these things as soon as we get up.”

“Buck…” Drafted. Bucky had been drafted. “I-”

“It’s fine.” It certainly wasn’t. Bucky rose to his feet, scraping his hair back. “That should cover the rent. The food stamps should be in my drawer, make sure they give you what’s due Steve. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you eat small.” He had already made a list. Started saying goodbye. 

This was real.

This was actually real.

“Ma’s gonna check in every fortnight,” Bucky continued, more to himself now than Steve. “She’s promised that she’s gonna help you get something stable. I think the seamster’s are looking for someone to hire. She’s got pull, she’ll get it for you.”

“Buck-”

“Steve please!” Bucky begged, falling back into his seat. 

“You really can’t get out of it?” Bucky wasn’t a fighter. He stood alongside Steve, got him out of scrapes, but that was nothing, that was childish scrapping. What was going on over Europe, that was hell. People died. They got shot. Steve had heard what happened that first time around. About that battle where barely anyone got out alive. Bucky couldn’t end up like that. He couldn’t just be another name on a slab somewhere. 

Yet here they were.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t care if he was too old to throw himself at Bucky anymore, his best friend had just been given a life sentence, Steve was going to wrap his limbs as tight around him as he could if it meant just one of them would feel better. “It’s gonna be fine,” He said. 

“It’s not,” Bucky choked, Steve’s sleeve starting to grow damp. “And the worst part is I know you’re gonna be stuck here without me.”

“I’ll get by.” If he managed to enlist he would do more than get by. He would be with Bucky. By his side, the two of them getting through this war together. It was the only solution he could come up with. Especially since it was actually the better of the two options presented to him. “Everything’s gonna be alright.” Since the thought had taken root now, and Steve Rogers wasn’t a man who often found a way to cheat the odds. So he would make it alright. It would just take some time.

Bucky got the rest of his papers the next morning. His basic training started next week, which meant he would be moving out Friday. Two days away. Plenty of time for Steve to get into the army.

He started when Bucky went out to deal with his employer. Bucky had already seen his Ma, but, knowing him, he would be seeing her again before coming home, which gave Steve a good hour or two to go to the local enlistment and put his name forward.

“No.”

Steve slid his ID forward again. “I’m 21, I’m of age.”

The guy in front of him finally took his eyes off the sheet in front of him, only to give Steve a long look up and down, a snorted, “No,” sliding the ID back towards Steve.

“But I can fight. I thought you guys were looking for anyone who was able.” That was what the posters said anyway. Any man of age that was able to hold a rifle was wanted in the army. 

Yet, apparently there was a standard, one Steve knew about but right now was refusing to accept as the guy laughed his ass off in front of him. “Listen kid, we’re desperate, but not that desperate. Now go home. Your Ma’s probably worried sick about you.”

He snatched his ID, trying three more enlistment agencies before trudging back home. But not before bumping into Matthews from down the road. As a kid, he was Steve’s biggest pain in the side, namely because he was the one punching there. As an adult, he hadn’t much changed, his big mouth spreading the word around that he’d seen Steve being rejected from the army faster than light. 

Therefore, when Steve got home, the neighbourhood weren’t the only ones to know about where Steve had been that day. 

He got it that night.

The night after too.

The last two days Bucky had with Steve the two of them spent it screeching until they were blue in the face. Bucky thought he was an idiot. He thought Steve was sweet to want to come with him, but an idiot if he thought just throwing his life away was the answer to his problems.

“You can survive without me Steve,” Bucky said.

“Well what if I don’t want to?” Steve countered, which just started a whole other round of arguments. 

By the end of it, the cops were called again from the landlady who had been coming by to collect what little rent they had. Thankfully, the cops were convinced enough that it hadn’t been a lovers tiff that had sent the neighbours their way. In fact, once they found out about the drafting they barely said anything other than a ‘congratulations’ Bucky’s way. They probably thought the army would sort out whatever ‘queer’ things were going on between them. Distance or some such nonsense. If only they knew Bucky wouldn’t lay his hands on Steve even if a gun were to his head. Bucky just wasn’t like that, and that was okay. Great even.

It would certainly get him more places than Steve was going. 

Friday dawned with Bucky packing up his stuff. One bag they were allowed, and that one bag was all that was really needed for the meagre things Bucky owned. 

Steve watched from under his quilt. He knew Bucky would be back before he was shipped off. That he might not be sent away for months actually. But it didn’t change the fact that his name was down. That he was going away from Steve. 

“I love you,” Steve said, needing Bucky to know before he left. He didn’t even mean it in a romantic way. Bucky was all the family Steve had left. He was everything to Steve, and now that everything was leaving. He felt his eyes tearing up.

Bucky was there before the first tear fell, pulling the quilt up until he could jump in, clutching Steve to him. “It’s not gonna be forever. I’ll be back in a few months.”

“I know.” It didn’t stop the tears from falling. A few months was a long time.

Too long. “You know I love you too right?” Bucky asked, his own voice not sounding too steady.

Steve nodded.

“Good. Because if I find you lying dea- just don’t do anything stupid.” A few months was a long time indeed, and with winter coming so did the viruses. A loud sniff was all the warning Steve got before Bucky was full on bawling along with him, “I should have boarded up that stupid window.”

Steve tried enlisting three times more after Bucky stepped foot outside their door. He couldn’t stay here. He just, he couldn’t. He couldn’t be left behind. He’d seen what happened to those that were. The ghosts that wandered the streets of Brooklyn. They walked in a daze, a sheet of paper clutched in their hands. They were the most people Steve passed these days. All of them going about their daily lives but with a hollowness about them. 

Brooklyn had changed since he was a boy. It had always been unforgiving, but now, it was skeletal. Like whatever meat had been left clinging to the bones of New York had been picked clean, and they, the bones, were left there to wait for whatever was to come next.

Two weeks after Bucky left, and Steve had still not joined him in basic training, the worst happened, he got sick. With no one but himself to look after him he didn’t think he would make it through. At times, he was sure he was already dead, and only feeling for himself the heart that tried to keep beating through his thin pajamas told him that he was alive. 

He sweat more than he drank, and lay in sick longer than was good for him. Ridiculous dreams wracked his waking vision, leaving him sitting in a tub that he had been sure had been full of water, or on the floor instead of his mattress. His throat grew sore as it was constantly aggravated, a cough, vomit, whatever Steve forced down then back up. He didn’t think it could possibly get worse. Then it did.

One afternoon, or morning, he woke from a nap to the feeling of fullness in his ear. He’d had his ears popped before, he knew how uncomfortable it was to live for days with only one ear capable of listening. 

Yet the days went by, and no pop came.

Even when the sickness passed and the sweats stopped leaving him clinging to his sheets did his ear right itself.

He screamed himself hoarse even if he knew it wasn’t good for him just to see if he could hear it right.

He couldn’t.

He was deaf.

Half deaf, but deaf all the same.

The army would never accept him now.

To make matters worse, as soon as he kicked that first illness, he found himself waking up with a new one. The draft, the way he’d been looking after himself, even the stress of Bucky not being there, whatever it was had just sent him down a long spiral of giving up.

He couldn’t remember the last time he ate as he lay there trying to breathe through the heaviness in his chest. He knew he had to however, as he dragged himself up and over to his cupboards.

Empty. All of them.

He wasn’t wealthy enough for a phone, and yollering at the kids that still refused to play their stupid ball game somewhere else would probably end up with him being mugged, so, with no other choice, Steve found himself forcing his aching body into his boots and coat.

He found the stamps Bucky had told him to cash weeks ago, hoping they were still good as he started down the stairs to the street. 

Every step was agony. His back ached, his legs were like lead. He just wanted to sleep.

He fell on things that he wasn’t half sure weren’t there. Avoided other things he knew weren’t there when he looked back and couldn’t find the bright pink brick he’d been sure had winked at him. 

“Just a second,” He told himself, stumbling over to the corner house. He just needed a second to catch his breath, otherwise he would never make it.

Yet when his back touched the brick wall, well, that was the problem, it didn’t. He’d miscalculated, or his mind had played another trick on him since Steve fell backwards, not once hitting something solid until he was flat on his back and sobbing at the renewed ache that set off.

He heard himself scream a little, just once, as his breathing set off again, his lungs not able to take in enough air. He was gonna die. He was gonna die here, he knew it, he just knew it. So why not, why not just do it. “I give up,” He said. “You hear me, I give up.” There was nothing left for him in Brooklyn after all. No parents, no Bucky. No job, no gal, no nothing but his stupid apartment that was probably going to be taken off him at some point anyway.

A ringing overtook his ears for a moment. Long enough for Steve to be convinced that God had heard him and was dragging him off ever so slowly when he tuned back into the world around him. His heart was surely beating faster, giving its last attempt at a gallop before puttering out. Poor thing, it had done well getting him here, it was about time it had a rest.

The beating got louder, and louder again until it stopped altogether, Steve feeling around on his chest weakly until he found it, still beating but not making noise. Some unknown language circled into his good ear, Steve looking around, hope, cruel mistress that she was, telling him that perhaps this wasn’t the end after all. Someone was here. They could help him.

Or mug him.

Quite frankly either would be putting him out of his misery. All he needed was a good kick and he’d be off to see his Ma.

Something blue blurred into view, Steve struggling to place what it was since it kind of looked like a toe. A really big toe. 

That language came again, louder this time. Enough so that even his deaf ear could hear a smidgen of noise echo through it. He didn’t have time to wonder if it was the Nazi’s, if, during his illness they’d had time to invade and were currently walking around Brooklyn. All he did have time to see was a big, gleaming red light before something touched his head and scorching heat took him into darkness.

He woke stiff, his limbs cold. But neither of those things were especially new to him. What was new was what he woke up to. The red he’d went to sleep to was gone, replaced instead with green and blue. The green belonged to a man. A rather girlish looking one, his hair longer than was fashionable, he looked like the kind Steve wouldn’t have been surprised to see behind one of the less talked about streets in New York. He was muttering something under his breath, the words foreign again to Steve’s ears. What he did know was that he wasn’t in so much pain anymore. Not like he had been. Despite being cold and stiff that seemed to be the height of his maladies.

In fact, as he listened longer to the man mutter, he could hear. Really hear. Both of his ears were working. 

“How-?” He asked, wondering what kind of medicine this guy had a hold of that managed to bring back Steve’s hearing. Or, he tried to anyway, the cold seeping the moisture from his mouth, leaving him coughing and choking on whatever spit he had left.

The man in front of him helped him sit up, patting Steve’s back harder than was necessary until he could breathe again. 

When he could, Steve noticed that things weren’t quite what he first thought they were.

He wasn’t being looked at by a doctor to begin with. The man’s hair wasn’t the only thing that was unusual about him. Instead of a white coat and smart dress, the guy had on what looked like armour, the gold glinting heavy and real in the dim light. There was fur around his collar, the coat he did have on more of a cloak. All of that was undermined however, by the fact it was almost all in tatters. The golden plates were chipped, sometimes even missing pieces altogether. Whatever cloth the man had on had holes in it, the fur ripped until only skin was attached. The guy’s face and hands even, weren’t exactly in the best condition, bruises and dried blood mottling most of his skin. 

Steve got a bad feeling.

One that got worse when he saw no hospital bed under his back, no bed at all just a cold stone floor.

No, not stone. Ice. There was ice everywhere, encompassing the walls and scarce furniture they had in here. By furniture, Steve meant a table, one larger than both of them combined. It looked fit for a giant.

The man in front of him talked, trying to keep Steve’s attention with his hands. When that didn’t work his head just followed Steve’s as it looked its fill, trying to figure out just what the hell had happened to him.

He was, he had been, in Brooklyn. He’d went out for something to eat. Then he’d fell. But he couldn’t have been out that long. Not long enough for someone to have transported him to- to- here?

Then again, Steve had been ill. Real ill. He’d thought himself he was going to die. He had passed out for days at a time before too. Maybe… maybe he’d passed out long enough this time for them to have taken him overseas. 

There was a slap to his cheek, again, the man using more force than necessary. Enough that Steve had to spit out what little blood his bitten tongue brought up. Steve brought his hand up on the way back, socking the guy in the jaw, the two of them looking more shocked than hurt when Steve’s hand came away with the red mark instead of the man’s. 

There was talking again, that weird language Steve thought could be German filling the air between them. Was this guy one of them? An Ally? A spy? A… scientist? He’d heard about some of the twisted things that happened in war camps. If Steve had been taken hostage he could very well be in one of those camps. Maybe the way this guy had been able to fix him had been able from whoever he’d experimented on before.

Steve felt sick. But as he tried to move away he found himself incapable. His leg, which actually explained some of the stiffness now he could see it properly, was stuck in the ice. Really stuck too. The kind like if someone had buried him partially and forgotten about the rest. Yet, somehow, instead of feeling nothing, Steve found he could actually wiggle his toes. He could feel the blood still going to it.

The man too, when he moved slightly to try and stop Steve from struggling, had his foot stuck in the ice. It was farther away, the man actually almost lying down to get to Steve right now, but he was stuck same as Steve.

Maybe not a scientist then.

“Look. Look!” Steve snapped when he’d calmed down enough to think, “I don’t know what you’re saying okay? I don’t speak German or whatever that is.” His voice was still loud in the room even after he’d finished speaking, his breaths taking their place, getting louder and louder as worry took hold again. “I don’t- I don’t know what’s going on.”

“What’s going on is that you’re going to die if you don’t stay still,” The man said, and for once Steve could actually understand him.

The man used the shock to drag Steve’s stretched body closer, raising a hand until something glowed and Steve’s body felt warm and tingly. “I don’t understand. You speak English?”

“English?” The man repeated like it was a foreign word. It turned out it was. “I don’t know what English is, but if that is what the Allspeak is translating to you then yes, I do. Now hold still. I managed to quell your fever but your body is far from healed. Quite frankly how you’re still alive is a mystery to me.”

For a guy who didn’t know what English was he sure sounded it. British to be exact, his accent all posh like the soldiers who sometimes came to America before being deployed back to the front. It made Steve wonder if the guy really didn’t know English like he said he didn’t, or whether this was just a ploy to keep Steve confused and still while whatever freaky thing he was doing with his hand, Jesus Christ those were sparks, did their thing.

He found himself panicking again. “Where are we?”

To that, the man arched a brow, looking at Steve from under his lashes, “You don’t know where you are?”

Steve shook his head, “If I did I wouldn’t be asking now would I?”

The man conceded after a moment, “Fair point.” His fingers did a few flickering motions, more sparks warming Steve’s body up before the guy spoke again. “You are in the illustrious dungeon of king Laufey of Jotunheim.” When that garnered no results from Steve the guy elaborated further. “I overheard the Jotnar saying they found you in the palace gardens. Or, what they say are gardens, one can’t really tell with all this snow. Nevertheless, they found you, and, thinking you a spy, brought you here to suffer with me.”

“Jotnar?” He didn’t know that word. Nor where this Jotunheim was. King Laufey didn’t ring a bell either. If they were part of the war they’d never been spoken about on the radio. 

The man narrowed his eyes, his finger stopping their work, “You seem surprised by this. Were you unaware that this was Laufey’s castle? Because, considering this is the only castle in Jotunheim, I can’t quite imagine how you would have gotten this mixed up with another.”

“Listen pal, I don’t even know who this Laufey is. Last I remember I’m fetching food and the next I’m waking up here.” The only castle here didn’t mean anything. Nothing at all. It didn’t mean that this was probably a small country, maybe even only a castle on a tiny island. Or that there probably wasn’t anything around for miles and no chance of sending a message for help out. He took a deep breath.

“Your highness,” The man said.

“What?”

“Not your pal. Your highness. Odin damn well added his name to mine I may as well take full advantage of that. Besides, my blood is royal either way so use the correct honorifics in future. Please,” he ground out.

Steve snorted, “Until I see a crown I’m calling you anything I see fit. Buddy.”

Steve got a glare for that. But the guy, prince, whatever, was too desperate not to heal Steve so he flicked his fingers once more, the sparks warming him up again. “When you say you were fetching food,” good, they’d moved on from the name calling. “Do you mean you were hunting?”

“No, I mean I was going down the store.” Only rich people hunted these days. Rich people and farmers, both of which Steve was not. “Grocers probably.” He couldn’t have afforded nor had the effort to cook meat if he tried. Speaking of which, he hunted down in his pockets until he found his food stamps. “Here, see.” Like his story needed to be proven. 

The man took them anyway, green eyes flitting over the signatures before carefully handing them back. “Those words, they’re Midgardian.  _ You _ are Midgardian.” Steve didn’t like the way that made the guy’s features twist.

“Er, no, I’m from Brooklyn.” 

The man shook his head. “Midgardian,” he repeated, more to himself this time. “But…” He seemed to go into a bit of a panic, some sadistic part of Steve appreciating that he finally wasn’t the only one not having a grand time.

He shook it off however, faster than Steve would have liked, his cool exterior falling back into place. He started waving his fingers again.

Silence fell between them for a while, whatever the guy was doing warming Steve up enough that he dozed off for a bit. When he woke, again, it hadn’t been a dream, and he still wasn’t dead, that much he knew. The guy still wasn’t looking any better either, which made Steve wonder since he was feeling great. 

Better than great. Amazing in fact. He didn’t think he’d been this well in a while. 

“What’s your name then?” Steve asked when whatever ‘healing’ had been finished and the guy was back lounging in his own part of this prison.

The guy glared for a moment before it dropped, a slight roll accompanying what had to be the longest title Steve had ever heard, and he’d listened to army guys call off their rank. “Loki Odinson, second in line to the throne of Asgard. God of mischief, father of wolves, rightful heir of Jotunheim and currently prisoner in this wretched castle. You?”

“Steve. Steve Rogers.” He felt kind of unfulfilled sitting next to the guy. While it was a list, it was a list the guy, Loki, had earned. Speaking of, “Hey, I think I know that name. Isn’t it European?”

“No doubt the Midgardians still use it in Norway,” Loki sighed. “They thought it a nice name, but weren’t exactly appreciative of its origin. Tell me.” He sat up once more. “Do they still use Thor as their main source of worship? Last I remember he was quite popular with them.” ‘Never shut up about it’ was muttered loud enough for it to carry over to Steve’s ears.

“Couldn’t say.” The names rang familiar, and Steve thought if he’d been able to go to college like a few hopefuls in his class then maybe he would be able to figure out why. But, Steve hadn’t, and only had what he knew from museums and libraries to go off, and to him, Thor and Loki weren’t exactly names that just popped out even if they were unusual. One thing did jump out at him however. “When you say God, what exactly do you mean by that?”

Loki waved his hand, “Exactly what I said.”

“You’re a God?” Steve snorted. The guy didn’t look like a God. Besides, there was only one God, and this guy sure wasn’t him. 

“You doubt my power?” Loki grumbled.

Steve looked around him, “Way I see it you’re not exactly doing better than me.”

That had the guy pouting. “I’ll have you know I want to be here.”

“Sure.” No sane guy ever wanted to be captured, and to Steve, this guy still had some sense about him. There was no way he was here by choice. The guy had basically said so anyway. No one said prisoner unless it was true. 

“I’ve healed you haven’t I?” Loki countered, which, yeah, that was kind of a fair point, and something that still unsettled Steve when he thought too much about it.

“If you were a God why don’t you heal yourself?” Steve asked since Loki was still covered in bruises.

Loki pouted again, flopping back to the ice. “My healing magic isn’t as great as others would think.”

“Meaning?” 

“Meaning,” Loki ground out. “Your puny Midgardian physiology is easy enough to fix but my own, especially now I know it’s different to what I’ve been told, remains- difficult.”

“Oh.” So, maybe it wasn’t about power, more about his understanding of himself. “Well, I’m sorry to say I’m not exactly much of a nurse. I mean…” He wanted to offer at least to clean the blood off Loki’s cheek but, well, the ice on his leg was kind of keeping him in place. Not to mention there wasn’t a rag or any water as far as he could see. He tried to rouse himself again when he realised his attempt at solving some of the tension he put there wasn’t working. Only to step his foot in it again as he still couldn’t accept that this guy was a God. “So if you’re powerful, that means you can get out of here? You said you weren’t a prisoner.”

He got another glare, Loki turning back to the ceiling when he was done and doing his best to ignore Steve afterwards. He got the feeling that anything Loki would have said to that probably would have led to Steve challenging him to prove it, and when Loki couldn’t bust them out, as Steve knew he couldn’t, Loki would look pretty foolish. Something told Steve his sense of self was rather important to Loki. He didn’t like to be put down.

That made two of them.

The silence stretched between them once more. Enough that Steve started wondering about what this all meant. He was trapped here with a magic man, prince, god, whatever. Here was some place he’d never heard of, with furniture that was bigger than anything Steve had ever seen.

This was… nope, no matter how much he thought about it nothing made sense. 

So, he came to the conclusion to after what had to be several hours and a nap later, maybe he just had to accept that he couldn’t wrap his head around this. The insane was happening to him, and in order to not end up paralysed by fear, he needed to get over it and just- just- he didn’t know. But it was better than panicking.

The cold set in an hour after Loki had stopped touching Steve. By now, after hours and hours without that magic warming him up, he was back to cold and aching. More than aching. His teeth were chattering so hard he was sure he’d chipped a few, and his bones, he could feel them moving as he shivered in his meagre coat.

He saw Loki look over a few times, but the guy didn’t say anything. In fact, ever since Steve challenged his godly powers the last time Loki had retained his silence, he, at least, looking like he was okay with the cold as not once did Steve see him shiver. Steve supposed that armour must be good for something. Insulation, regardless of the holes that were scattered over his body.

Overall, despite the beating and the healing, Loki was still in better condition than Steve. Especially when, he didn’t know how it started but it did, the cold led to a runny nose, then sneezing, then coughing as the phlegm kept getting stuck in his throat.

With nothing to wipe his nose on and years of being covered in his own liquids Steve thought nothing of spreading his mucus about. Loki on the other hand, and Steve was actually starting to believe that prince part with the way he actually reared back the first time Steve sneezed, just looked on more in horror now than curiosity.

His latest coughing fit was interrupted by a loud clanging sound, a real loud clanging sound, like thunder booming off an open plane of water. When Steve looked up, his sneeze fogged mind had to do a double take before screaming overtook him as a monster stepped in.

Giants, he remembered his mother telling him about, were frequent monsters in his childhood. Being from Ireland, Steve’s Ma was superstitious to the point where she actually kept watch over Bucky’s sister’s first born so a faerie would steal it off. Needless to say, Steve had a pretty good idea what he expected when he thought of a giant. Yet it was nothing like this.

The thing was over ten feet tall, its skin as blue as the ice that surrounded the walls and floor. Its eyes were red, the kind of red that Steve remembered seeing before passing out. There was nothing covering its body save a slab of skin from some animal or other across its hips. Any other time Steve would have been fascinated that a giant had a sense of dignity, nevermind that giants at all were real. But right now, in the face of a creature he’d heard feasted off human flesh, he could do nothing but try and back away. 

It spoke with a low timbre, one Steve expected to shake the ground with how loud it was yet no tremor came. What did was Steve finding his voice gone mute, his throat still moving but no sound going out, and the giant turning to Loki to mutter, if it could even be called that, something his way.

Loki talked back, and for a while some nonsense language filled the air. Then it stopped, Loki doing his best to lunge forward with his leg still stuck within the ice. The giant didn’t see it as a threat, cackling as high as his low timbre would allow before tossing something just within reach of Loki, the loud footsteps the only sign they truly had that it had left them alone as the door locked them in once more.

Loki was hissing still from his spot twisted on the ice. For a few moments more he spat what had to be curses to the giants long gone form before falling defeated onto his front. With effort Steve didn’t know he had Loki reached to the slab the giant had left, dragging it around until Steve saw bone.

He didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to think what it might be, that it could be another person from Brooklyn. But, since his curiosity had always been too big for his small stature Steve peered again from beneath his lashes. 

There was bone indeed, but the bone was larger than any bone Steve had seen before, and he’d been to the national museum where that weird dino creature had been displayed. Loki was muttering about “scraps,” like this was just the remnants of a meal. To giants Steve thought that was probably true, but Loki shouldn’t be thinking like that. He was Steve’s size, and Steve himself, now he knew it wasn’t some poor schmuck from Brooklyn, already knew he would probably only be able to eat a slither of this meat before he was full. 

Hell, they should be rejoicing. This meat could feed them for days, so the giants- for crying out loud giants!- must want them alive. This was good. This meant that Steve could get out of here. He could negotiate, maybe make a run for it when they finally came to get him for his true purpose here. 

The meat was cooked at least when Steve reached for it. Tearing it off the bone was a little tough, Steve guessing these animals were sturdier than those Steve was used to, being giant animals and all. Throughout all of this, when Steve finally got a piece off and started stuffing his mouth, Loki just sat there and watched. 

It was alright at first. But after a while of being watched Steve started to feel self conscious. Which was saying something for someone covered in phlegm. “What?” Surprised that he could actually make noise again.

Loki shook his head, “Nothing. Just waiting for you to eat your fill.”

“Polite of you.” Especially considering he’d been reprimanded for incorrect use of Loki’s title. Steve would have thought the guy would insist on eating first.

Loki just pursed his lips, watching Steve once more until Steve couldn’t help but sit back, stomach full. When he did, Steve realised just why Loki had held back. Also why he’d been muttering about scraps. Loki, for his small stature, could eat. Steve couldn’t look away as half their supply went, then three quarters, then just the bones. Steve thought he would stop there, but no, as soon as Loki finished licking the bone clean he took a mighty bite out of it, and there that went. Steve had never been so horrified and amazed in his life.

Especially when Loki said, “Wish they had the decency to bring some dessert. Wine at the least.”

“Dessert? Are you kidding? What kind of-” God. Right. That was what Loki had said, and Steve was starting to believe him.

Loki sucked the last crumb off his thumb, eyeing Steve rather appraisingly. The look wasn’t a comfortable one, not after what Steve had just witnessed. But, Steve argued, Loki wouldn’t eat him. He’d healed Steve, and they were being fed, small portions Loki said they were. There was no reason for him to. Nor want to. As far as Steve knew Gods weren’t cannibals.

Still, he couldn’t help putting his foot in it by asking, “Could you not look like you’re fantasizing how good my leg would look on a plate?”

Loki raised his brows, eyes never leaving Steve’s body, “It’s not my fault I’m hungry.”

“Gods eat people then?” He kept his tone light, hoping to be laughed off.

Yet Loki didn’t laugh, and instead said, “I admit I haven’t had Midgardian for almost a millennia. But the taste was nice as I recall.”

There was a beat of silence. “That’s cannibalism!”

“Is it?” Loki asked. “Last I checked I’m not Midgardian, and doesn’t cannibalism mean to eat one's own kind? Besides, if you didn’t want us to taste you, perhaps you shouldn’t have offered so many of your own people up as sacrifices for us.”

Steve felt sick. This guy, Loki, he was no better than that monster that had just left them. Worse even, since Steve hadn’t heard the giant admit that he’d eaten Steve’s people before.

As if sensing his faux pas Loki tried to amend it by saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to eat you. I need you.”

“And when you don’t?” Steve asked.

“When I don’t, I’m sending you home. Trust me, as nice as Midgardians are, there are sweeter things out there than your frail bones. So calm down and come here, your sniffing is starting to get on my nerves.” He grabbed Steve when apparently Steve didn’t move fast enough, and in a few seconds Steve was feeling that magical warmth once more.

Loki, since he declared Steve too frail to sit in his snot covered clothes any longer, used magic to clean him up, wrapping him in that fur collared coat Loki wore once finished. The added protection was welcome. What wasn’t was Loki’s close presence. It wasn’t just because of the cannibalism thing either. Loki was cold. Ice cold. His fingers outside of his gloves felt like snow on Steve’s skin, and it felt like there was no heat at all able to penetrate that armour. 

Thankfully, Loki was content to just leave Steve with his coat and the occasional burst of magic. Thus went their routine. Steve started counting the days by it. Every time the giant came he guessed a day had gone by, up until the point Loki told him they fed them every three days not every day, apparently the giants wanted the pair of them weak. That response alone told Steve something about their situation. 

The giants thought he was what Loki was. They didn’t see that Steve was better fed here than he was at home, and assumed, because of his small stature, that they were keeping him starved like Loki. That, while he didn’t know why it was a good thing, except that he was still being fed well, told him that Loki didn’t want them to know that he was Midgardian. It was important somehow, and since Steve had never been really important before, he could quite happily say he wasn’t enjoying it too much right now.

The giant came and went sixteen more times before something broke their cycle. The giant came, just like he always did, but instead of throwing down a slab of meat he came over to them. Steve was screaming, as he usually did when the giant showed up, really, it was an involuntary reaction for something that big and terrifying coming anywhere near him. Especially when it didn’t stop where it usually did, and instead actually grabbed Steve in his massive fingers.

The ice on his leg faded away, like something had melted just that part surrounding it. Free for the first time in weeks, Steve used that opportunity to its fullest and started flailing as hard as he could in the giants grip. It didn’t do anything. If any of them would have had a chance against this thing Steve thought Loki would have with his magic, yet there Loki was staying as still as he could as the giant led them out of their dungeon and into another hall that didn’t look much different.

These giants, for all their massive presence, didn’t have much in the way of furniture. At least, not down this level, Loki did say this was a castle after all. The hallways they walked through were empty gigantic sheets of ice fashioned so smooth that Steve could see himself as they were carried. 

He didn’t look so good. Better than Loki, but not the pillar of health he felt like these days. 

The stairs, when they got to them, were just as daunting as the hallways, spiralling up and up and up until they encountered another empty hallway, and another. The whole walk itself lasted as long as Steve thought a walk should take. Which was weird. He would have thought, as a giant, they would be either taking longer on their walk due to the elongated time between their massive feet and the floor, or faster because they were bigger and could therefore travel spaces faster. Yet it was the same, and in the country of the giants Steve supposed why not. It wasn’t the most ludicrous thing to happen.

The giant dropped them off in a throne room, the only way Steve knew it as such because of the giant throne in front of them. 

He heard more than felt his knees knocking together as he stared at the makeup of this throne. Skulls made up the arm rests, and not the skulls of giants. These were small, Steve’s size small, and stacked one on top of each other until a creature as tall as a giant could sit on it. The rest of it was made out of ice, a large fur draped across the back, and sitting on it was a giant bigger than any Steve had seen yet. 

Loki, who had kept his silence until that point, quickly knelt before the king. They spoke that odd language again, Steve not taking his eyes off the giant as he started replying back. 

Whatever they spoke about started aggravating Loki after a few moments. He shook his arm towards the king after a few moments more, one of his golden bands, slightly more discoloured to the others jingling right along with the motion. The king didn’t seem to understand Loki’s words, or just didn’t care, murmuring more words that had Loki near screeching.

The whole conversation lasted barely five minutes, yet it was enough for the king to tire of them, waving his hand to the giant that had brought them in. They were going to be taken back. Back to the dungeon. To the cold and boredom. To just each other and no hope of anything. 

Loki had the same thoughts, that or this was what he’d been waiting for since he didn’t stay still anymore. As soon as the giant made a grab for him Loki dove towards Steve, pulling Steve behind him, pushing him more like it to the side. Whatever the case it got Loki in a good enough position to avoid another swipe and grab the arm on the way up, propelling himself up to the giant’s shoulder. Steve heard himself screech as Loki went for it and put all his weight behind slamming himself into the giants eye. The pop would haunt Steve’s nights for years to come, but it did its part in getting the giant distracted enough not to come for them as Loki jumped, rolled and dragged Steve away from the throne room and the king that was now yelling and coming for them himself.

He probably shouldn’t, but Steve trusted Loki to get him through this god forsaken place. They were making good time, and when a giant did come around the corner for them, Loki knew of divots they could hide themselves in. They were small enough not to be seen, but smelled? Steve wasn’t so sure, he wasn’t exactly well washed these days, and neither was Loki. More than once Steve saw a giants nose twitch, their red eyes focusing in on where Steve and Loki were hiding only to pass on.

It was starting to get to him.

But Loki was confident enough to overrule that feeling, taking Steve down more hallways until a cold wind like nothing Steve had ever felt before slammed him full force. He couldn’t see much else but white. White everywhere, no other colour, just white. White. White. White. 

Loki still didn’t give Steve the sense he didn’t know what he was doing, dragging Steve out and into snow so deep it went up to his neck. He was shivering worse than he’d ever done before, and while he knew Loki had some kind of magic keeping him warm, Steve thought even that should falter at the sheer intensity this cold was. 

Loki dug his way through the soft snow, sending small blasts other ways every now and then, the reason why apparent when they hid before giant feet stomped on them.

They hit hard snow after what felt like a lifetime. Loki had to help Steve up when it turned out Steve still couldn’t pull himself up despite the good portions he’d been fed. Worse, he started stumbling behind as the cold wind, now unhindered by the snow in front of them, started cutting into his lungs. Loki didn’t slow down for him, in fact, he pushed Steve in front, prompting him with little nudges when he started falling behind.

Things blurred for a while, then Loki was back in front of him, mouth moving and Steve realising he’d been asked the same question multiple times. 

“Think,” Loki barked. “Where abouts did you land? Just give me something to go off.”

Land? He looked about. Loki had said the giants said he landed in the gardens. Was this the garden? It didn’t look much different to the rest of what Steve had seen of this place, just snow and ice everywhere in sight. 

Loki shook him again. 

“I don’t remember. I don’t. I was ill. All I saw was blue.”

“Blue?” Loki repeated, hissing low under his breath before taking off again. 

Steve whacked his head when Loki nudged him that bit too hard. There was a wall of ice in front of him. The castle he thought. He really hoped not, but Steve didn’t think they had travelled far enough for there to be another house so near the castle. 

Steve’s nose started stinging, his fingers coming away with drops of blood as Loki dragged him across the wall, his hands out in either direction. He was at it for a while. Long enough for Steve’s nosebleed to stop and the coat he’d borrowed from Loki to get good and red at the sleeve. 

The sky grew dark as Steve’s breathing got worse. His attempt to shield his mouth in Loki’s fur collar had stopped working after the first gust of wind found him again, but still he tried as Loki kept feeling along the air. He wanted to say something, maybe tell Loki they should find shelter and try again tomorrow. But there were two problems with that plan, the first being that Steve couldn’t even find spit to swallow never mind talk. The other being that Steve was too scared to tell him to give it up. If they gave up now Loki might not be able to find his place tomorrow, which meant they would have to start again. Steve didn’t want to start again. He didn’t want to do anything but forget this ever happened. Forget everything had happened and curl under his covers with Bucky snoring on his left.

So the sky darkened, and Steve had to actually grab the side of Loki’s armour, the part that hung over his thighs, in order to not get left behind. “Blue. Blue. Blue,” he heard Loki mutter, wondering if he could see in this darkness. 

Loki wasn’t like him, and even if Loki was like Steve Loki was probably in better health so who knew what those kinds of people could see. But could Gods see in the dark? 

Apparently he could see well enough, or just have enough sense to not stray too far from what he couldn’t feel. Whatever it was, stumbling through the dark, Steve finally heard another hiss, then a drag on his hand and Steve was plunged into more darkness, only this one had light in places plenty enough that Steve could see a little of what was around him.

Brooklyn. Just smelling the place Steve knew he was in Brooklyn.

There was still snow. But this snow only reached to his calf, and the cold wasn’t so bad that Steve couldn’t breathe. 

He fell to his knees, crying as relief washed over him. He was home. Home. New York!

Were it not for Loki still in front of him, waving his hand in the place where they had fallen out of. Steve would think the last however long one enormous hallucinogenic dream induced by some sickness he’d caught. 

Loki muttered, then cursed, “I can’t close it!” 

“Do you need to?” Steve sniffed, getting to his feet. 

“If you don’t want giants following you through,” Loki said, waving his hands again in one final attempt.

Steve didn’t want giants to come through. As much as he would have liked to ditch Loki here and run home he didn’t want to wake up to see red eyes peering in his window. “What can I do? How can I help?”

Loki muttered a while longer before finally deigning, “You can’t.” His hands dropped. “And neither can I. It looks like father will have to deal with this.” He glanced at Steve, his eyes truly better than Steves as he said, “Go. You would do best to forget me and what happened. Don’t think more about it, I will make sure the giants do not trouble your world.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Steve said, looking back at where the alley to his apartment lay. 

Loki pushed him this time, that alley mouth closer when Steve righted himself, “Go home mortal.”

They stared off at each other up until Steve near had a heart attack as a big beaming light came down and sucked Loki up. 

“Loki!” Steve screamed, and kept on screaming until someone came out and told him to shut up. 

Loki didn’t show up. Loki didn’t show up again for the whole night Steve spent standing there, looking at the sky and the wall that Loki had said he couldn’t cover up. 

When morning came, and Steve felt his nose running again, he figured Loki had survived this far, he could survive whatever had zapped him up. Truly, it was the only thing Steve could do to turn away and go home. He didn’t have any special magical powers, and that was weird enough to think and mean. Nor did Steve have any strength or speed, or even knowhow to begin trying to find where Loki had been taken to.

It felt strange to walk the streets of Brooklyn after so long spent immobile. He put it down to Loki’s magic that he could even walk at all after so long sitting. Still, seeing the mundane houses and people he knew, the war that was still on everyone’s tongues, it felt weird, like he had never been gone. But he had been gone. He’d seen things that were bigger than this war with people of the same species as himself. There were freaking giants and gods. If anything people should be banding together to fight them. 

He felt around in his pockets for his key, wondering if he’d even put it in his pocket when he left or just walked out and left his door unlocked. He still had his food stamps. He also still had his night clothes on. Needless to say, standing there rooting around his pockets in his stripey pajamas he got a few looks.

Looks he rightfully returned when the door opened without his hand on it to reveal, “Bucky?”

Bucky looked like he was going to the store, his good coat on, his wallet in hand. He looked like this was just any other day. Not that he’d been drafted. Or that he should be in training… 

Oh God. Had Steve been gone that long?

The answer he got when Bucky breathed, “Steve?” Like he was the one seeing the ghost. 

“Bucky,” Steve said again, just happy he could even address his friend again, his hands moving before he’d finished to wrap themselves around Bucky’s back. “Oh God Buck. You’re here. You’re really here.”

“Steve,” Bucky breathed, hands wrapping slowly but just as tightly back. Just tightly as they dragged him in and slammed him against a door. The good mood vanished as soon as Steve saw the hard look in his friends eyes. It was rare that Steve got that look directed at him, and he wasn’t completely liking it right now. “Where the hell have you been! I left money Steve. I put things in place. Then I come back here and find not only that Ma hasn’t seen you since you wouldn’t answer your fucking door but that we’ve been evicted? That you’ve gone missing? I know you were upset you couldn’t come with me but disappearing off the fucking map-”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, eyes welling up. He was home. He was really home and Bucky was here. “I’m so sorry. I got sick and I had no money for a doctor. I… I don’t know what happened.” Despite not knowing what Bucky would do if Steve told him about the wild adventure he’d been on, he knew it was easier excusing his missing time on being sick than giants. More easier to accept and a faster way for Steve to get in a real bed before noon. 

It worked anyway, the last of the animosity leaving Bucky. “How sick?” Bucky asked, taking Steve immediately from the door and into the cold apartment. “God you’re already burning up again. Sit down, I’ll get a bath running.”

It really was like he’d never been gone. 

Bucky drew him a bath, and when Steve was dry and huddled under his covers afterwards they talked more. Bucky said everything he wanted to before, about how terrified he was to come home to an eviction notice on the door and the landlady not having a clue where Steve had went. How Bucky had went to his Ma, his sisters, even neighbours they had never talked to except to tell them that no, they weren’t queer and could they please stop calling the cops, just to see if they had seen Steve. He told Steve about the grocers, the bakers, even the high end tea shop, how none of them had seen them, nor had they heard he was even in Brooklyn, since they would know being the very few with money enough to afford one of his paintings.

“You scared me half to death,” Bucky said, “I thought you were dead Steve. I thought you’d finally gotten into a fight you couldn’t walk away from and I would end up just- wandering around one day and finding you there.” While Bucky was all Steve had, Steve was almost as much to Bucky. He was family, always would be, and Steve knew that Bucky meant every tear and word he shed when he told Steve that he missed him.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I really am.” And to prove it, the next morning Steve did tell Bucky about the giants and Loki. 

Of course, because Steve had waited so long, and because his body was an absolute joke that didn’t have Loki’s magic hands to wipe away illnesses any longer, Bucky heard it when Steve was lying sneezing in his bed. Bucky said it was some imagination Steve had, and nothing Steve said could really rectify that statement. Not now Steve had waited too long.

It didn’t matter that Steve still had Loki’s coat, the only real proof he had himself that his story was true. To Bucky, that coat was something Steve had simply picked up on his travels. Either some nice man had gifted it to Steve when they found him lying in whatever ditch Bucky pictured him in, or Steve had stolen it in his fever walk. No magic man, no god, just Bucky having far too much faith in both humanity and Steve’s capabilities when he was sick.

He gave up trying to convince Bucky around the fourth hour of repeatedly telling him Steve wasn’t insane or making it up. Instead, he asked about Bucky, actually preferring to hear about the training camp he’d been sent to instead of red eyes and blue skin. It was, oddly grounding, to be reminded that they were at war, and that the world had gone on without him.

Bucky had made a good impression on his superiors. He’d shown surprising skill with a gun. “All those nights shooting cans with Pa,” Bucky put it down to. Steve heard differently. He knew all those nights with his father shooting cans Bucky was imagining it was his father on the other side of that gun. It was no secret that the Barnes patriarch was a sorry excuse for a father and a husband. Apparently he’d been a good man when Bucky’s Ma met him. But she’d made the mistake of hitching herself to him too early, and when war came and Bucky’s Pa came back, he was no longer the sweet man she’d fell in love with. Quite frankly, if Bucky hadn’t been good with a gun Steve would have been surprised. 

Regardless, the higher ups had told him that they were considering upping his rank before he was shipped off. Some kind of promotion to make morale go up Bucky said. They all knew higher ranks were reserved for rich boys after all, those who had an actual life to live beyond this war. This was just a nod to all the other men who hadn’t thought to sign up yet. A way to say ‘look at Barnes, he hasn’t a penny to his name and yet he’s made it.”

Ridiculous. 

But well paying. 

With Bucky’s army pay he was able to get this place back before their landlady sold it to another desperate soul. He was also able to get Steve a sketchbook. Something he really shouldn’t have.

“Nonsense. ‘Sides, I might not be back for your birthday so I thought you should get your present early,” he said, handing over the fine paper with a hint of red in his cheeks. “You take good care of it now.”

He did, filling those blank pages with enough drawings of Bucky that he would never completely forget his friends likeness should something happen. Lord forbid it did. 

When Steve got well enough he could stand, they went out. At first it was to show Brooklyn that Steve Rogers was still alive and kicking. Then to see if they could scrounge up some money for Steve. After that, when Bucky got sidetracked by a couple of girls hanging by the post office, they ended up going to the dance hall, Steve watching as Bucky spun and danced and enjoyed the limited time he had left. 

“You really patching that up?” Bucky asked the morning after. He didn’t look good, the drink leaving him droopy eyed and slack as he fell into his chair by the fire.

Steve spared his friend a grin, he at least knowing the meaning of enough as he pulled Loki’s coat closer to the light. “It’s a good coat. Warm. I’m not gonna just chuck it out.”

Bucky hummed, his head tossed back and honestly dead to the world. Steve let him nap, it wasn’t like Bucky had a job to get to anymore. Threading his needle, Steve worked it through the holes the giants had made, patching up each and every one, if shoddily, until it was whole again if not presentable. The fur Steve couldn’t really do anything about. He’d looked in the shops to see if he could find something similar to patch up the holes with, but every animal fur he found was either the wrong colour or texture. Wherever Loki came from they too had animals that were different to the ones Steve were familiar with.

Since Loki never came back for his coat it found itself on Steve’s shoulders more often than not. He went everywhere with it on, the fine material the only one that kept the cold truly out. On Jotunheim, it might not have been so great, but in Brooklyn, boy had Steve struck lucky in not giving this back straight away.

He got a few name callers every now and then. Fur had started being a lady’s thing, more often found on their clothes than a man’s, which meant that Steve was once again venturing into dangerous territory. But he wasn’t about to give the coat up. Not for his life would he give it up. 

The girls seemed to like it anyway. Said it made his eyes look nice or something. Steve took their word for it.

The point was, everything was normal. They got back to their routine, they paid their rent and tried to keep Steve from dying.

Then the letter came. The one that told Bucky he would be getting his orders in the next few days. Orders to ship out, probably never to come home again, and if he did, he wouldn’t be the same Bucky he was when he left. 

Bucky went into a bit of a spiral, and Steve didn’t have the heart to stop him. They went out every night, Steve, now the war was pressing in again around him, to enlistment agencies. Giants or not, he wasn’t in that world, and the world he was in was taking Bucky away from him again. If Steve just found a way to get into the army he knew he could help. He could make sure Bucky wouldn’t have to face this alone. If Steve was scared of being left alone back in Brooklyn himself, then it was just more incentive to join up.

Bucky never found out about them. He was too busy dancing, drinking and generally having the best last hurrah he could. Especially when he found Steve scrapping in an alley. Then that worried look was back, being cast at Steve every chance Bucky got between drinking and dancing.

“Look, the Stark expo’s on tonight,” Steve said when one too many glances were given his way. “Can’t we just enjoy your last night? I know how much you like fancy machines.”

Bucky shook his head, but at least said, “Fine,” calling the girls over so they could start on their way there.

The machines were interesting. But the night wasn’t light enough for Steve to enjoy it. All he could really think about was the fact that he was going to be alone again. 

He broke off from Bucky when the opening presented itself. He couldn’t find it in himself to entertain tonight, and so started back to his apartment. If, on the way there, he found an enlistment agency, then Steve merely called that luck.

Surprisingly, he got past the initial look over, the guy at the front desk waving him through to the second screening. He’d never made it this far, and wasn’t exactly confident when it involved a doctor. 

“Take your shirt off and sit on the table,” he was ordered.

He was stared at until his hands approached his tie. God this was happening. They were going to examine him. Only the highest form of luck was going to get him through this. Luck and confidence. The latter he could fake, the former needed divine intervention for, but, considering he was at this point in the first place, maybe there was someone up there looking out for him.

The doctor did his tests without a change in his face. Steve couldn’t tell if he’d done okay or not. But he did know that being told to wait instead of being kicked out or sent further into this screening process wasn’t a good thing.

He was going to be arrested, he knew it. 

Finding his coat, he made a dive for his shirt, stopped when he felt fingers on his spine. “Norns. You’re just one defect after another aren’t you.”

“Loki?” 

Sure enough it was.

He was healthier, no bruises or blood in sight. His hair was still long, but washed and falling in silky waves down his back. His armour was gone, replaced with a light shirt that, again, looked weird for today’s fashion. All in all, not the look of someone who had been abducted by a foreign burst of light.

“What are- what happened to you?” Steve demanded, his shock fading into anger. “I waited there all night to see if you would pop up. You don’t just leave a guy there without a word.”

Loki held his hands up,” My apologies,” he offered, before slowly correcting his hands to Steve’s arm and leading him out. 

“My clothes-” Steve tried, but after a brief snap of Loki’s fingers Steve found himself dressed once more.

If this was a fever dream this time, it sure was warmer than the last.

Loki led him out, and away from whatever cop was there to arrest him. Strangely enough, Loki had dressed Steve in the coat he’d basically stolen from Loki. He wasn’t going to say anything about it however, and let Loki lead him where he would.

“You still haven’t answered my questions,” Steve said as Loki looked around the street corner.

“Questions?” Loki mused. “Ah, I suppose it has been some time since Midgard has seen the Bifrost. That was my ride home. Heimdall, while annoying, seemed to sense that I was ready to beg father for my old position back as black sheep of the family. Inconvenient at the time, but since he got that damned band limiting my powers off, I suppose I can’t complain too much.”

“Your ride home,” Steve repeated, remembering all those sci-fi pieces he and Bucky used to read under the covers as kids. They had spoken about a beaming light. Only those had been about aliens, not Gods. But then, wasn’t Loki kind of an alien? He said he wasn’t human, and wasn’t an alien, by definition, someone not of human origin? “Wait, what band?”

“The one Laufey put on my wrist,” Loki said, as if expecting Steve to remember this non existent conversation. 

Loki had said it was limiting his powers. “But you could do magic.” Like Steve had even the slightest inkling he knew what magic entailed.

“Only small magic. Healing is one of the most basic arts we’re ever taught. My brother could even do it if he put his mind to it. Other things however, require a bit more pizazz.” Loki kept on looking. “Where abouts did we land again?”

Land? 

Right. God. But apparently a god that couldn’t find his way around Brooklyn. “This way,” Steve said, starting back the way they came and down a different street. “So when you said you couldn’t close it before?”

“I didn’t have the power,” Loki agreed. “And since father said I may as well do my part for Asgard, here I am.”

Steve could find where he’d tumbled out blind now he’d stared at it that many times. He’d went looking, as soon as he was well, for any sign, other than the coat, that this was real. There was only one spot in Brooklyn that got colder than the arctic, and that was where he’d popped out. He’d considered showing Bucky, proving his wild story was true. But the idea of some giant getting their hands on his friend stopped Steve every time. Mostly he just looked at it when he passed it. One time he’d gotten brave enough and put his hand through. It didn’t hit the brick wall like Steve thought it might. Instead, it went through, and Steve quickly snatched his hand back before he could be taken again.

Loki seemed to remember the way, or just sensed the portal, since he quickly took the lead before they got to their destination. This time, there were no curses, just Loki waving his hands and nodding his head when he was done.

“That’s it?” Steve asked, not able to feel the biting wind from that direction anymore.

“That’s it.” 

Loki looked up, hands on hips, waiting, Steve gathered, for that ‘Bifrost’ to take him again.

It wasn’t instantaneous however, like last time, so Steve had time to ask just, “How exactly did you find me?” Since, if Loki didn’t know street signs or landmarks, there was no conceivable way he should have been able to pop in like that and grab Steve.

Loki didn’t seem to think it too complicated a question as he said, “I tracked you.”

“How?” Steve pressed, needing to know just what he needed to be careful about. Did Loki have some kind of spy device that allowed him to find Steve anywhere? What kind of technology did this ‘Asgard’ have.

Loki, again, didn’t seem too bothered about saying, “Well, magic would have been easier, but it does take a while to get all that spellcasting together. So I just tracked your scent. I think I should know it by now.” He gave a friendly sniff Steve’s way like that made this any better.

“What do you mean my scent?” Steve remembered Loki saying his kind used to eat Midgardians. God, is that how they hunted them down? By sniffing them out like dogs?

Rolling his eyes, Loki was there a minute and the next was a wolf. A big, real, black wolf. Steve’d screamed far too much this past year, yet another was out of his mouth as Loki barked once and changed back. “Answer your question?” 

“I guess,” Steve choked.

“Good.” Loki cast his eyes upwards again. “By the way,” he said after a moment. “You don’t have anything too important going on here for a few weeks do you?”

“Er…” Bucky was going off tomorrow. If the cops didn’t come for Steve then he would be scrounging around for money, picking up the little jobs he could between selling his paintings. “I don’t think so.” Was this a conversation? Should Steve ask about Loki’s life? He had to admit the curiosity was overwhelming.

Loki took that option away however as he nodded, “Good.” He waved his hand up, sparks of green coming out of his fingers. “I swear…” He looked over to Steve. “You may want to come a little closer.”

Closer? “Why?”

The answer came with a blast of light. Steve’s stomach felt like it was coming through his throat. He was thrown up, weightless, flying, then slamming onto a ground that was harder than the automobile someone had slammed Steve into a few years ago.

His breath rattled as he fought his way to his elbows, the rest of the floor flying away as a strong hand yanked him up and onto his wobbly feet.

“Are you sure it was wise to bring him?” a low voice asked, Steve looking around to see gold. Gold everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, even in the guy’s eyes holding Steve up.

“It’s fine,” Loki said, looking far better than Steve felt as he slotted something onto his head. It was a head piece of some sort, with two horns pointing to the ceiling. He looked a bit like a bull. “Father wants to speak with him anyway. I figured this was better than assaulting him in his home. Now if you could please unhand him, we have an appointment to keep.”

The guy did, Steve launching himself at Loki, if only so he wouldn’t fall on his face. With hesitant steps, Loki led him out and into a world that Steve wasn’t too sure wasn’t heaven.

Everything was a mix of rainbow lights and gold. Steve didn’t even question if it was real, the bridge under his feet feeling sturdy enough as Loki walked them across it. On the other side was a city of sorts. The houses, while looking shiny from the bridge, weren’t made from the gold Steve saw running along the bridges and roads. Instead they were a creamy yellow, blending in, complementing, but not overwhelming like the rest of the city.

There were people everywhere, and snow here too that crunched under Steve’s shoes where it hadn’t been shovelled away. For how cold it was, the people here didn’t seem to care. They were barely wrapped up, their long dresses and colourful tunics on full show, just like Loki’s. Steve was beginning to think maybe it was just humans that got cold. Up until he saw a few of them wrapping up ahead. It turned out, those Steve had seen, were in fact spilling out of what he would later learn was a tavern, where the fire was blazing and the drink strong enough to warm even the hardiest of men.

There were animals interspaced here and there, small farms that opened out to stalls and then, finally, a set of grand stairs. “This is incredible,” Steve breathed.

“Suppose,” Loki sighed, not as enamoured with the city as Steve was. But then, Steve supposed this was Loki’s home, he’d been looking at this view his entire life. “Come quickly, I want to get you cleaned up before supper.”

The stairs, a trial to climb in itself, led to an even greater sight once they reached the top. There, before him, was a castle beyond anything Steve could ever imagine. Gold, again, and rising larger than the giants Steve had seen on his last journey. Snow dusted the golden spires, the towers and even the soldiers that stood guard, their helms the same colour as Loki’s, although different in style. 

They didn’t bat an eye as Loki dragged Steve inside, no question as to who Steve was or what he was doing in Asgard. Steve probably should have said something about lack of security. All he did say was, “You really are a prince aren’t you?” A prince of the Gods apparently.

“I did tell you,” Loki said, not sounding too obnoxious to be proven right. 

The stairs, since of course there were more of them, almost did Steve in. He had to take a break when they got to a certain floor. Long enough for Loki to roll his eyes and start dragging Steve again up the next flight. 

He thought the stairs would actually do him in. But no, Steve was still alive when Loki stopped going up and started down the hallway. 

There weren’t many doors, which surprised Steve for some reason. Loki made a passing comment about this being his floor, motioning here and there to where the servants kept their things for their jobs like Loki’s linens and his extra bath oils. One of the rooms was Loki’s personal armoury, which was open enough that Steve could see the mass of knives and short swords that hung from the walls. So, not a guy Steve wanted to get on the wrong side of.

The last door that lay at the bottom of the hallway, belonged to Loki’s personal quarters. Steve had a moment to wonder if he would even be allowed in but Loki didn’t sense the boundary that had erected between them, and quickly ushered Steve inside. 

Green seemed to be a favourite colour of Loki’s since it was plastered as much as could be accepted in one room. The bedding, the cloaks that were discarded on seats and the floor. Even the curtains that hung before his balcony were green. 

“Here,” Loki tossed a bowl Steve’s way, the fruit inside familiar and foreign depending what it was. “Don’t fill up though, we’re having boar tonight.”

“Boar?” He’d never had boar before. 

He picked at the grapes, those familiar enough for him to eat. Or so he thought. For some reason Asgardian grapes had a sweeter, more indescribable, tang to them that made Steve’s mouth zing. He stuffed ten more in as Loki puttered about. 

His travelling clothes were changed out for others, a nightshirt really, and another he brought suspiciously closer to Steve. “Off,” Loki said, fingering his own coat on Steve’s back.

“This is a kidnapping, isn’t it?” Steve realised. He wasn’t going home tonight. Loki hadn’t been asking if Steve had anything going on because he was passing the time, he wanted to know if he had anything pressing to attend to because he was intending to keep Steve here for an undisclosed matter of time. “I have things to do back home!”

Loki gave him the side eye, “You said you didn’t.”

“Well, nothing like how I thought you were asking. But my friend’s going off to war tomorrow. I can’t just- just-” Then again, maybe this was for the best. Bucky was probably spending the night at one of the girls’ anyway. All Steve would be doing would be staying at home, waiting for him to come back and getting more and more frustrated when Bucky didn’t. He didn’t want to see Bucky walk out again. Wait in that apartment, knowing he was going to be alone for, what could be the rest of his life.

Loki seemed to see Steve’s resignation as he tugged on Steve’s coat again. “Off,” he repeated, helping when Steve took too long. “Besides, Yules starts tomorrow. I’m not doing anything magic related for the next twelve days.”

“Yule?” He’d vaguely heard about it. His Ma had mentioned that there were still some yuletide celebrations back in Ireland around this time, but mostly people celebrated christmas, which was what he’d thought he could celebrate with Bucky this year before he left. It looked not. “What does that have to do with magic?”

“Nothing,” Loki said, tugging Steve’s shirt off for him. “But, as a rule, and probably the sole reason we celebrate this insane holiday instead of the old one, no one is allowed to work over Yuletide. Meaning no pranks, and since the majority of my pranks involve magic, no magic. There’s not really a need for it.” Cold finger started tracing down Steve’s spine. “Thankfully this means no work for my father too. It should make breaking the news that you’re here that much easier. It’s often how Thor and I break any news to him.”

Wait until their father couldn’t do anything about it. Smart. Also something Steve had done when he was a kid. If there was one thing a kid knew it was the right time to break news. For Steve it was when he’d come out of some fever or another and his Ma was so relieved to still have him with her she didn’t care what kind of trouble he’d gotten into.

There was a burst of warmth and then pain as his back seemed to light on fire. Steve’s attempts to get away were squashed as Loki held merely a hand on Steve’s upper back, the strength alone keeping him in place. The pain felt like it had last an eternity, but since it was still night out when it ended it couldn’t have been too long. 

“There,” Loki said, releasing Steve from his hold. “All done.”

“Done? What the hell did you do?” He reached back, expecting to find burnt skin.

Instead, Loki hoisted him up and over to the mirror. “Have a look. I think you’ll find moving much easier now.”

His spine. Now that Loki mentioned it he did find himself not slumped, his neck not aching when he stood a certain way. In the mirror, the nobs that stuck out of his skin weren’t bent like they usually were, and instead stood straight like Bucky’s did when Steve had seen him without his shirt on. “Why- why would you do this?” Not that he was ungrateful. He was as far from ungrateful as someone could get. The thing he couldn't wrap his head around was why Loki would do this for him. 

Yet, again, Loki didn’t see it as the big boon it was. “Watching you walk was making my head hurt.” He let Steve admire his back a bit more before tossing the nightshirt his way. “I’m going to see where that boar is. Hopefully Thor hasn’t ate it all.”

Steve did some stretches when Loki was gone, barely believing the lack of pain he had. This was incredible. 

When Loki did come back, a stream of people behind him, Steve saw that their definition of boar was, again, different. Steve was expecting a pig, kind of like the kind he saw at the butchers. Certainly not this massive bulk of an animal that took two people to bring in. It wasn’t portioned either, Steve able to see the whole body of the boar. Other things were set around it, cheeses, greens, food Steve had never seen the rich quantity of before. Dessert came in as well, Steve not sure he had the stomach to even get past the cheese. 

The servants cleared off after filling Loki’s cup, the only one remaining Steve wasn’t sure was a servant. He had a tunic on, and didn’t avoid Loki’s eyes like the others did. But he didn’t look like the brother Loki had been talking about. He didn’t look anything like Loki.

But he had to be, since Steve didn’t think anyone would have the gall to steal Loki’s food if they weren’t related to him. He was big for one thing, blonde too where Loki’s hair was dark. Their eye colour could be the same, but all shades of blue looked alike from afar. 

“Paws off,” Loki chided when Thor, Steve remembering that name being tossed around during their capture, had taken more than his fill. “I haven’t ate anything since yesterday.”

“Not my fault,” Thor said, grabbing a last handful of meat. Steve came under scrutiny when Thor finished chewing, his eyes uncannily sharp for someone who looked more brawn than brain. “This the Midgardian then?”

“Yes.” Loki grabbed himself a plate like he didn’t believe Thor’s attempt to start a conversation. “Go introduce yourself if you wish. He won’t bite.”

“That’s one of us,” Steve muttered. 

Not quiet enough however as Thor snapped around to Loki, “What have you been telling him?”

To which Loki just smiled, “Not what you’re thinking I assure you. In our capture I may have mentioned that if I didn’t need him to help me escape he may have ended up as dinner.”

“Oh.” It looked like cannibalism wasn’t too obscene for Thor either since he didn’t look horrified at the mere thought. In fact, Steve got an actual reprisal at that, Thor remarking, “He’s a bit skinny to be filling.”

“I was desperate.” And to counter Thor’s statement even more Loki offered, “You can sit if you wish. There’s plenty enough for you.”

“Just not for me,” Thor pouted, taking a seat also.

“No.”

Steve took the farthest seat he could from them. Loki, Steve had some faith in that he wasn’t going to hurt Steve whilst he was here. Again, why heal him if Loki was just going to kill him later? But Thor? Steve didn’t know. He couldn’t really tell much about him right now other than the fact that he wasn’t what one would think a man of his size and looks to be like. 

The boar was incredible, and Steve knew that no boar on Midgard would ever taste like this so he didn’t even try and make a comparison. All he knew was that it was tasty, and sat filling in his stomach. Bucky would have loved it. 

Bickering stopped his thoughts from turning too maudlin. There was nothing Steve could do even if he was back home, so he may as well stop thinking about it. Here, at least, he was warm, fed and looked like he would be able to sleep the night away without waking with cramps in the morning. Nothing no one of Steve’s generation should give up if it were presented to them. 

“-sure you should give it to him? He’s… frail,” Like Steve couldn’t hear Thor. Even quiet the man filled a room with his voice.

“Give what to me?” Steve demanded. 

Loki shot a grin at his brother, “Some wine. The real kind not the watered down stuff. It’s not really meant for Midgardians.”

“Because they often go mad,” Thor tacked on, stopping Loki’s hand in place. 

“They get drunk,” Loki corrected, the two of them flapping at each other until Loki managed to elbow Thor somewhere uncomfortable enough to free his hands and give Steve a cup. “Besides, I’m not giving him a lot. Just enough to take his mind off Midgard. He’s bringing my mood down.”

Thor still glared but didn’t stop Steve as he took the cup gladly from Loki. He wasn’t going to back down from this. It was wine. He could drink wine. Lightweight he may be, but if it meant proving that Midgardians weren’t as dainty as Thor thought they were then Steve would down a whole casket. So he took a sip larger than was probably wise, and immediately felt the tingles of tipsiness take him.

He had more wine at one point, that much he remembered. A lot of food too. But the conversation of choice around the table faded from his mind when he tried to recall it the next morning. All he did know was, and this was from observing rather than remembering, he’d lost his nightgown, and his trousers, and at some point thought Thor was a better pillow to lie on than the ones that were heavenly soft on Loki’s bed.

He carefully got to his elbows noting that, yes, he wasn’t wearing his nightshirt anymore. Nor were Thor and Loki. A bolt of fear went down his spine before common sense drove itself into him. They were brothers, and even if they weren’t, Steve wasn’t stupid enough, even drunk, to consent to that kind of perversion. 

Besides, he didn’t feel sore anywhere. Nowhere at all. Especially not his back. 

He spied his nightshirt next to a nightstand. The space between there and Steve’s current location however was full of obstacles he didn’t think his newly healed body would appreciate so early this morning. Still, it was dignity or teasing, and considering Loki wasn’t an ugly man by far, Thor being just otherworldly, Steve didn’t want to really measure up to them.

Getting untangled from Loki was easy. The guy was perched on the farthest slither of the bed he could find, covers off and more hanging than lying over the edge. It was only his hair that tried to keep Steve in his place. Thor on the other hand had a good deal of body on top and around Steve. His leg pinning Steve’s hips would be the biggest obstacle. Something to deal with last however, as the arms were always the most difficult to cast off.

Thankfully, despite being a behemoth, Thor’s arms were slack enough to leave the smallest of gaps that only a man of Steve’s stature could make use of. Which he did, as carefully as he possibly could. 

Away, and making sure his body didn’t grow too heavy on one part of Thor’s body, he set about wriggling out of Thor’s leg, his skin tingling at each drag and slip of his fairly innocent virtue. 

Somehow, he did it. His foot on the floor, he managed to successfully get away from the bed without waking either of them up.

“Get a servant to bring up breakfast won’t you?” Thor grumbled as Steve started towards the nightstand. 

“You’re awake,” Steve sighed.

Thor hummed in agreement, turning onto his side to drag Loki over to him. “See if they can find some honey cakes.”

The spring thoroughly out of his step, Steve shoved his nightshirt on and peered out Loki’s door. He didn’t see anyone immediately. Quite frankly the fact he was still here was still bewildering him, but Steve, again, pushed that aside as he tried to remember where servants were meant to linger if they weren’t needed. Loki had even pointed it out yesterday.

Shoving his shirt down, he started looking through different doors until he found someone, a girl no less. That interaction left Steve with red cheeks the rest of the morning, and only he seemed to have a concept of dignity since the other two didn’t even dress when she came into their room minutes later with a buffet bigger than anything Steve had seen in one room. 

“So the servants work on Yule?” Steve asked, wondering how this all worked. Loki had said he didn’t work on Yule, and by the looks of it, and the late sun in the sky, neither did Thor. 

“Serfs,” Thor said, downing a goblet of wine without even blinking. 

“And serfs are…?”

Loki and Thor shared a look. “They’re,” Loki deliberated on, “People from other worlds that don’t conform to the same celebrations as us.”

There was more there, but since the girl that had seen him in his nightshirt was coming around again with another jug of watered down wine Steve found his throat closing up again. “So what does Yule entail if you’re not allowed to work?” If it were christmas, Steve would be in church, then home opening the gifts he and Bucky got each other each year. Then Bucky would go see his sisters and Steve would be at the graveyard visiting his Ma. At least, if he wasn’t sick he would be. If he was that was a completely different story.

When Loki started on explaining it kind of went along with Steve’s idea of christmas. Asgard was celebrating anyway, but not just for a day, they had twelve days of it. There were no religious celebrations however, since, well, they were Gods, or, they said they were. Instead, there were games, little races meant to be fun, and feasts that stretched all night long. Then there was- “An orgy?”

Thor grinned, Loki looked a bit smug too. “You know your ancestors weren’t too against the idea.”

“As I recall they thoroughly enjoyed themselves,” Loki tacked on.

Steve felt his cheeks get hot. “And that happens at Yule?”

“Yule,” Thor listed off, “Spring equinox, summer, funerals, births, war, peace, really there was always an excuse to have an orgy.”

“Simpler times,” Loki said, giving Steve an understanding look, “It’s fine, we’re not expecting you to join in. Just, don’t get yourself into trouble while we do. The last thing I want to do is end up on that table again for ‘working’ during Yule.”

“The children had fun,” Thor said, not as against the idea of his brother going on this so called table as he should be. 

“The children always have fun.”

Yule itself started that night, but officially it began this morning. Complicated as it sounded, Thor explained it while Loki was bathing that the people started as the sun rose whereas the royal family officially welcomed Yule on an evening with the grand feast. “We’re always asleep in the mornings. Especially father. It’s about the only time he can get a lie in.”

Until evening the royal family was expected to laze about and get themselves ready to party. That meant a lot of baths. Steve, since he’d never had a bath like the ones in Asgard, was happy enough to join in on this part. Communal as they were, and by that Steve meant Thor joined him along with the serfs puttering about the back of the room, they were still enjoyable. Warm, real warm too, hot Steve could even say. It didn’t need to be heated over a fire either, just came streaming out the taps steaming. Steve’s muscles had never unwound as quickly as they did in that bath. 

After the initial wash, they were laved in oils and joined Loki by the baths a second time for their hair. Steve’s wasn’t as long, nor tied in intricate braids, so it only took a few moments to get his clean. Still, the oils they used smelled heavenly, and the strength whoever these people were had in their arms meant Steve was another pile of mush when he was ushered over to be shaved and bathed again. 

When he was finally allowed to be dry, Loki leant him a robe, the serfs bringing tunic after tunic out for Loki’s approval until the right one caught his eye. They brought Thor’s in too when it looked like he wasn’t going back to his room anytime soon. 

It was evening when they dressed. Loki stuck Steve in clothes that had no right to be comfortable with all the straps on them, but they were. With little they could do with Steve’s hair, Loki deemed him appropriate, and let Thor lead them out and down the complicated stairs until they came upon a hall the size of New York. 

It looked like everyone in Asgard was present. They sure could fit. 

Along every space possible were long tables, families and friends gathered around, laughing and already on their way to drunk. They stood when Thor and Loki passed, some of them cheering and calling foreign words Thor’s way. All of them looked resplendent, like something out of a fairy tale. Steve itched to mark it down, sketch it out, especially when he saw the head table. There wasn’t anything specifically marking it out as the royal table except that it was before the throne. The throne itself Steve was reminded of the one in Jotunheim. It was large enough to be like it, the intricacies almost the same too, but like someone had painted over the skulls until they were nothing more than golden bumps. The seat was smaller too, or the alcove of which someone was supposed to sit. But it was magnificent. Terrifying, but magnificent. 

Almost all of the head table stood when Thor and Loki came close. All but five who merely raised their cups. Steve felt his breath stick itself in his throat. One of them had to be the king, Loki and Thor’s father. The man that, according to Loki, the best time to introduce Steve to him was when he wasn’t allowed to punish them for it. 

Two of the men there Steve thought were old enough to be Thor and Loki’s father. Or, he thought it was one of them, the third, although younger, could also be their father. Truth was, Steve didn’t know how this all worked. He didn’t know how these people aged. For all Steve knew the young guy was Thor and Loki’s father and the other two were just elders or something. Like ancient all knowing people in this weird fantasy community.

Thankfully, before Steve could start on a spiral of just how old Thor and Loki were, one of the old men said, “My son’s,” and gladly cleared the air on that question. “It’s about time you joined us. Come, eat, drink, and let Frey tell you about this new sword he’s had commissioned from Nidavellir.”

The woman beside the man, younger, or just keeping herself in better check, mumbled, “Your father’s already had a few.” The words only a wife could say to excuse her husband’s behaviour, and, just like a wife and mother of someone like Loki, who Steve knew was a handful due to how they met, was on Steve like a dog with a bone. “Who’s this?”

“Loki’s friend,” Thor said, leaving his brother to deal with the rest of it as he eagerly took a seat next to the young lady 

“He’s the man that helped me get out of Jotunheim,” Loki said, which was news to Steve’s ears. As far as he was aware Loki was the one that rescued him. 

“The Midgardian?” Loki’s mother asked, her brow doing the job of making Steve dance on his toes.

“Midgardian?” Loki’s father bellowed, the rest of his words indistinguishable to Steve, but the rest of them seemed to understand, and whatever he did say the man found hilarious since he was laughing on the verge of tears afterwards.

Steve just looked to Loki to see if they were in trouble. Steve didn’t think that they were. At least, not tonight as Loki said something back before pulling Steve forwards and next to the man Loki’s father called Frey.

Talk was, interesting. What Steve could understand, or at least, was spoken in his language, he had a hard time wrapping his head around. The idea of swords and cloaks, of feasts and magic, it was all very surreal to Steve’s ears. What he couldn’t understand he didn’t think they were doing it on purpose. More, it was like those immigrants that Steve saw at the bar sometimes. They would be speaking English as best they could, but as soon as their drunk levels got far enough, they forgot that English was even a language. 

This Allspeak that Loki told him he spoke, and that these too around the table did, was getting less and less mentioned as more wine was poured into their goblets.

Their drunkenness actually worked in Steve’s favour in the end. It allowed him to get a feel of these people without them putting him on the spot. 

Odin, Steve just got a bad feeling from. But he seemed to love his family, and wine made him happy, so both of them together meant he was pleasantly chirping away all night instead of whatever else he usually did. The other old man, Njord, was the leader of another country, or world, or something, and knew both Frigga and Odin intimately. How intimately Steve didn’t know. He thought Njord and Thor’s mother might be related due to their little details that seemed different to the rest of the Asgardians Steve saw around them. What he did know was that Odin and Njord had some kind of grudge against each other. One that came about on Yule and would see them scrapping in the days coming. Steve didn’t know how, since that was all he caught when Allspeak translated enough words to him.

Frigga, Steve liked her. She was pleasant to be around, and despite being just as sharp witted as Loki, the pair of them the main sources of entertainment through the night, she made sure that Steve didn’t feel out of place or the butt of all their jokes when they started talking on Midgard past. She was the only one that didn’t get full on drunk too, Steve honestly surprised when he saw the girl, Freyja, down several cups and challenge her brother to a wrestling match.

For some reason, and Steve’s insistence of not getting drunk, they watered his own cup, so Steve had his head about him as the feasting broke out into fighting, then feasting again, dancing, singing, eating, and then morning. 

Some Asgardians started filtering out when light hit the hall. Most of them however, dropped where they were, including Thor and Loki. Steve, not wanting to fall asleep in an unknown place, asked for directions off the serfs back to Loki’s rooms. It took a few tries before someone would guide him, security, even at Yule somewhat high enough that the serfs didn’t let just anyone into their prince’s rooms. 

But he got there eventually, and gladly slept with his stomach full once more in the fire warmed room.

He woke at evening, where he was told the feast had started up again and while the temptation to go down and listen to Asgard get drunk and merry again was strong, he needed a moment to just wrap his head around this, it was all still a bit too much. Besides, it wasn’t like he was without food. Loki was a hungry man, and while Steve was looking for paper he found a number of sweet treats hidden around the room. 

The only paper he could find was something that felt more expensive than anything Steve could ever use, and since there weren’t any pencils in Asgard, he left it alone. Instead, he retreated to the bathroom again, doing his best not to disturb things too much as he drew the hot water.

He wondered, as he lay there melting, what Loki’s purpose was for bringing Steve here. Friendship couldn’t possibly be it. Loki was a prince, not to mention charismatic, there were plenty of people willing to listen to him last night. As a Midgardian, and the fact that he was the only Midgardian here, told Steve that perhaps his kind wasn’t completely welcome here, yet Thor hadn’t tried to kick him out, and Loki had made sure Odin wouldn’t either. So he wanted Steve here for a purpose. Was it because of Jotunheim? If so, he couldn’t possibly see what Loki could want from Steve. He wasn’t the hero in that tale. He’d been sick for most of it. 

It was perplexing, and Steve didn’t want to think of himself as a stupid man. Just one that was out of his depth right now.

Loki had no books at all written in English. He had so many of them Steve thought at least one of them might have been somewhat familiar to his eyes. But no, nothing. Yet that didn’t mean Steve was without entertainment. While no words, there were pictures, and Steve spent most of the night looking at the complex creatures and beautiful illustrations littered in Loki’s books. 

He got a sense of some of them. A few had diagrams, pictures of hands that Steve tried to imitate the movement of. Nothing happened, and since Steve couldn’t wrap his tongue around the foreign words he felt safe trying to make some magic.

It was a lot of fun. Fun enough to send him to sleep again and wake up, he was starting to sense a pattern, between Thor and Loki. 

Thor was clothed this time, but Loki, again, seemed to find his room too hot as he lay shamelessly as close to his window as he could get. They stunk of sweet wine, and since this time Thor didn’t wake when Steve climbed over him, they must have celebrated their asses off. 

Breakfast was another feast of which Steve ate a lot, but not nearly as much as the other two when they woke. “Games today,” Thor yawned, stuffing one last grape in before it closed.

“And poor you not being able to participate,” Loki drawled.

That put Thor in a mood as they washed and dressed. Like most siblings, Thor’s continued pouting caused Loki’s mood to brighten. So much so that the man was practically purring as he climbed on Thor’s large back.

The games weren’t conducted in an arena like the knights of old. Instead, Steve and the rest of the palace, but not Asgard, were led to the gardens, of which Steve, again, had to take time to wrap his head around. He was still trying to equate that there were flowers like that and he could actually touch them when they came to the lake that spanned the back of the palace. Odin and Njord were already dipping their toes in, stripped to their waists, while Frigga and Njord’s twins looked on with disparaging faces.

“Every year,” Thor sighed, taking a seat next to his mother.

Loki leaned in close to Steve, “Ever since Father invited Njord to Asgard for Yule the two of them have been getting into fights. It used to be actual brawls until Mother decided she’d had enough and told them to go throw rocks outside. After that, they tried to get their rock the farthest, which led to other challenges, and other challenges and now here we are.” He took a seat next to his brother, waving his hand until a blanket, fur really, appeared underneath him. “Sit.” he indicated to the patch of fur left, and Steve was want to refuse in this cold.

Odin and Njord, for men who were meant to be leaders of Gods they were almost like children as they name called- Loki told him that was what they were doing- each other. It got to the point where Njord was flapping his hands about, the two of them looking like they were about to start fighting in that petty way children did before working themselves up to punching. But thankfully Frigga managed to see that too and went to pull them apart.

They waited in the snow, Loki conjuring little balls of warmth around Steve, and food on occasion, until the sun was high in the sky. Only then, when the water wasn’t so frozen, did Frigga get up again and declare the beginning of the games.

Swimming was first. For all Odin’s talk, Steve was surprised when he came in second. Neither of them looked weak. In fact, they were probably two of the most frighteningly strong looking old men Steve had ever seen. But Njord wasn’t as rotound as Odin around the arms. 

“He’s a fisherman,” Loki explained when Steve brought his observations forward. “God of the seas. It would be an embarrassment if he were to lose a swimming race.” He at least not too disheartened by his father being beaten. Not like Thor who was sullenly handing over some of the sweet treats Loki had deigned to give him to Frey after a failed bet.

After swimming came spear throwing. A foot race. Shield bearing which Thor was equally invested in as he shouted advice from the sidelines. Then lastly the tie breaker that was a board game of all things.

They were all wrapped up in one of the royal sitting areas, this at least the rest of the palace agreeing was a waste of their time as they went to recline and drink elsewhere. Steve thought to join them, or retreat to Loki’s rooms. However, Loki had made it clear that he wasn’t suffering through this alone, and thus was teaching Steve how to plait Thor’s hair as they watched the old men fight their last battle.

“What does the winner get?” Steve asked.

“Glory,” Thor said.

“Bragging rights,” Freyja chimed in, waving her foot in Loki’s face until he started rubbing it. “They also get to sit at the head of the table and be celebrated as the Yule king.”

“Yule king,” Loki snorted. “I can’t believe we actually call it that. You know the Midgardians never had a Yule king.”

“The Midgardians also think we don’t exist,” Thor pointed out. “Don’t make your comparisons to people I can ask Steve about now.”

A point Thor continued to exploit as he made a point the rest of that night to ask Steve as many questions as possible. Steve had a feeling half of them were things Loki might have used against Thor at one point, but couldn’t quite work out which in order to perhaps not make Loki look like an idiot. Thankfully, Loki didn’t see it in poor taste, his own curiosity about what little of Midgard he’d seen spurring him to ask things too after a while of pouting. 

It was calming talking about home. Grounding in a way. Being here, it was like home didn’t exist, just like being home made this place seem unreal. Merging the two, while odd, made it feel like they were both valid, like they were both still there instead of one of them hiding in the shadows. 

He drifted at some point, which was the precedent for the rest of Yule. At some point he’d been given a cup of unwatered wine, which spelled the end of coherency until Yule’s end. The hangover, when it came, was possibly the worst thing Steve had ever felt, and he’d been near death enough times to know what pain was. 

He was in Loki’s bed, which should have been a good thing, except, the more he looked, the more he realised that while this looked like Loki’s bed this wasn’t. Even if Loki was present, the room was completely wrong to what Steve knew it as. The colours were red instead of green, the furs more plentiful, like whoever lived here got cold instead of hot, and there was a ferocious looking beast staring Steve down.

His clothes were missing, and no amount of tugging the sheet around his ankles would let it budge. The haze in his head cleared enough to show him there was someone wrapped up in it. Someone that was decidedly not Thor. Frey, Steve guessed, except he spied Frey and Freyja respectively on the long table taking up the corner of the room.

There were more bodies scattered around as his eyesight started working properly. Thor, Steve spotted in front of the fire, looking like a bear as his long hair tangled around his naked limbs. Something sticky was on Steve’s legs, and the more he looked the less he wanted to think what it was as the word ‘orgy’ kept circling around his head. 

It was with great courage that Steve slid onto the floor. He didn’t know if it was relief or disappointment that zinged through him when nothing that shouldn’t started aching. So, Steve hadn’t acted on those urges at least. But he had acted on something, and boy he wished he could actually remember it as he looked at all the beautiful, if sleep slack, faces around him. 

His stomach, surprisingly, told him he was hungry. After all the food it had consumed these past twelve days it still found room for more as Steve picked at the fruit and went to fetch someone to inquire about meat, preferably eggs. 

When he came back, after finding the kitchen of all things, there was only Thor and Loki left in the room, both of whom were awake and eating the food Steve should have waited for. They were dressed too, the servants, different from the ones Steve had seen milling around since he came, finishing with both their hairs. 

“Good, you’re not dead, I was worried for a moment,” Loki said, shooting Thor a look. He waved a hand behind him, a servant already walking over, “Make sure he looks presentable, if the council is there father will want to show him to them.”

Steve didn’t get a chance to ask what the council was, whether they were the same as the council back on Midgard, the guys that basically decided which houses they owned needed their rent put up. Instead, as he was scrubbed within an inch of his life, the talk turned to things such as training, and touring the lower towns. Steve was confused for a moment why that was important, before remembering these were princes. To them, doing nothing but walking about was working. Then again, maybe they had nothing like hard labour in Asgard. The Asgardians weren’t working on Yule after all, and the farms must be easy to maintain if everyone had magic like Loki. 

It was certainly something to think about.

He got an appraising hum when the servants declared him done, Loki tossing some clothes, again somehow of his size, towards him, the buckles and ties tied for him. Only when Loki flicked Steve’s hair, nothing really able to be done about it, Loki said, did they start towards a different part of the royal wing.

“Now,” Loki said. “Father won’t be drunk so you’ll have to watch what you say. Make sure you impress upon him your significance, otherwise he’ll probably have you executed.”

“Executed?” How could Loki say that so casually? “Are you kidding me?”

Loki waved his hand, which wasn’t really an answer at all. “If he asks about me, tell him I was there on negotiation. And above all, do not tell him about Laufey.”

“Wh-” He didn’t know how to even formulate a reply to all that. Laufey? He hadn’t a clue what they’d said. To him their conversation had been gobbledegook. As for negotiation, while that one Steve was pretty sure was a lie, being told definitely now and casting that doubt away wasn’t helping Steve’s nerves one bit. Oh God. He was going to die.

The rooms in which Odin was occupying were obvious due to the amount of shiny men standing outside. They looked just as hungover as Steve felt, maybe even more miserable since Loki started making fun of them as soon as they got closer. He continued to do so as the guards knocked on the door and shoved Steve through, alone, to a study that had no right being as magnificent as it did.

Any other day, Steve would have been trying to draw this along with the rest of Asgard. The remnants of personal and professional littered all over the golden room gave it a homey feel, and here and there Steve could see parts of Odin’s family that either he’d allowed to stay, or they had simply left behind. There, a pile of books that had similar titles to those in Loki’s rooms, as well as a fur blanket that was next to the window, the coldest place possible in the large room. Nearer, Steve could see boots and a red cloak that had to be Thors, as well as flowers dotting all over the place like someone had tried to remind Odin that there was a world outside of work.

Lovely. If only Steve wasn’t dwelling on the idea he could be executed if this meeting went wrong, and Loki was right, Odin wasn’t drunk, and a not drunk, or distracted by Njord Odin was a very frightening Odin.

His single eye watched Steve the whole time he walked to the chair opposite. Steve felt like he was being called for a belting, only worse, as he sat, Odin still not talking for a good few minutes. 

The silence, if this was its purpose, worked, since Steve was the one saying, “Your home is lovely,” hoping that compliments would smooth over whatever bad things Odin was imagining happening to Steve.

“I should hope so,” Odin said, “It took five hundred years and four wars to build.”

Blood gold then, and didn’t that just bring a whole new perspective on the high walls of this place. A fort. Someplace his enemies would have a hard time breaking inside. This wasn’t just a father or a king in front of Steve, but a hardened warrior. Much greater than the ones playing at war back home. This man wasn’t sitting behind his desk when the battle came to him, directing the front lines and knowing full well he would never see it himself. This folk, just as Loki and Thor were trained in the arts of battle, so were their father, and probably everyone else. A warrior race, and wasn’t that terrifying to think about. 

Odin didn’t move, but if he did, and if he was a man who hadn’t trained ticks out of himself Steve was sure he would be worrying his fingers just like Loki did right now. “My son tells me he met you in a Jotun dungeon. Care to tell me how you got there.”

Not a question. Odin wasn’t giving him an option. He had an idea what had happened and he wanted to see if Steve’s version matched up to it. Still, being a smartass like Steve was, he couldn’t help but ask, “Did Loki not tell you?”

Odin’s eye didn’t so much as twitch, “He did. However, I’m asking you.”

“I fell,” Steve said, not mincing around the subject. There was no reason to. What happened was an accident. A complete accident. “I was walking to the grocers because we were out of, well, everything, and I just fell.”

“We?” Odin latched onto first. “There was someone with you? Perhaps someone that pushed you?”

“Oh, er, no.” He hadn’t even realised he’d said ‘we’. For so long it had been ‘we’, it felt wrong now to say ‘I’ yet, he supposed it was ‘I’ now. “I had a roommate. But he… he’s no longer around. It was just me.”

There was a hum, the first sign of suspicion shown at all from Odin outwardly. Nothing else however as he pressed, “So you fell? Why was that? What made you fall?”

“Couldn’t I have just fell?” It wasn’t that far fetched. Steve had seen people fall in Asgard so it wasn’t just a human thing. In fact, Steve had seen Odin fall at some point, he was sure of it. 

“I’m sure you could have,” Odin said. “But it is rare for people to fall and enter a completely different realm. Unless you knew where it was.”

Knew where… “You think I’m some kind of magician?” Since there was no other way Odin thought Steve could have made that portal unless he had magic. “I’m not a magician. I didn’t even know magic existed until I met your son.” Steve took a breath, he needed to keep his temper in check. His head was literally on the line here, and Steve’s Ma didn’t raise no hooligan. He had manners. “Look, I wasn’t well. Like, probably dying. I was leaning on the wall because it’s on the corner of my street, and I honestly couldn’t walk much farther. I was going to the grocers, I swear, but before I could, I fell through this stupid portal and ended up in another realm. So if you think you’re having a hard time processing this imagine what I’m thinking.”

There was another hum, but Steve’s panic must have been sincere enough, which it was, since Odin didn’t ask more about how he got to Jotunheim. Instead, he moved onto what Loki thought he would when he told Steve to ‘lie’. “What exactly did my son tell you he was there for?”

Steve took a moment. He had two options in front of him. He could do what Loki said and deliver the lie. Or he could deliver the truth as far as he was aware of it until a few minutes ago. Really only one of them Steve could deliver the best. “He didn’t. When we met, I wasn’t exactly well, despite Loki’s best attempts. I don’t actually remember much about what was said. Not that I even understood it. I guess you guys have like your own language or something? All I do know was that those guys, those giant things, they’re freaking huge and, like, I’m guessing that it’s not good that they got this portal to my world otherwise I wouldn’t be in here and Loki wouldn’t have come back to close the portal.” He stopped there before his rambling got too far. 

Odin deliberated on that a moment before speaking, and when he did, Steve wasn’t sure whether he was talking too fast to be heard, or whether it was some other language altogether. His apparent confusion must, again, have been enough to prove whatever Odin wanted since he said, “Very well. And no, it is not good that the giants have found a way to your world. Nor you to ours.”

Which begged the big question, “Are you- what’s happening next then?”

“Next?” Odin considered. “You are under Loki’s guest welcome, so you will stay as long as he wishes you to. However, I know that wasn’t completely what you were meaning in your question. The giants will be dealt with, have no fear.” If that was meant to be reassuring, Steve thought Odin could have tried better to change his tone, posture, something at least. He started to get the feeling that Odin didn’t do consoling all that much, probably leaving it to the Queen. Someone Steve kind of wished was here right now.

“Can I go then?” Steve asked.

Odin seemed amused by that, for the first time shifting in his seat to tap his bottom lip. “I suppose,” He agreed, Steve not waiting to hear the rest of it as he stumbled over bows and thanks to the door. “Tell Loki to come in when you leave,” Odin called after him, and Steve gladly did since it meant he had an excuse to turn his back.

Loki, loitering and currently sporting one of the guards helmets, seemed almost eager when he heard he was to be seen to. A fact Steve should have taken as a sign this was going to be a long morning for him, however, at the time, all he couldn’t help feeling was relieved that it was someone else’s turn now to be tortured. 

Little did he know, Loki’s eagerness, and the fact Steve didn’t quite know his way around these halls, meant that he was stuck waiting around outside while whatever meeting was conducted. Steve’s smalltalk was bad at best, the need to actually make conversation he usually left to Bucky. For Steve, attention had never shined its light on him, and when it did, it was usually for the wrong reasons. So the guards were definitely unimpressed with Steve’s attempts to ask whether they thought 1919 world series had been rigged.

Turns out they didn’t even have a world series up here.

When Loki did come out, his good mood was still present, which meant whatever he’d been wanting he’d managed to cajole out of his father. “Come on then,” Loki said, already walking away. He still had the helmet on.

Between the stops to let Steve catch his breath from the extensive climb this place was, and the fact that Loki did indeed get stopped every so often by people that wanted his attention, Steve got a better tour of Asgard than he had the last twelve days.

They started in the gardens, where Loki had a short conversation with his mother, that strange language fired between them, then onto grounds strewn with big brawny men battering each other. The city itself was next, where Loki showed him the hangouts of people called ‘The Warrior’s Three’ and then to farms where Loki was called upon even more. 

Steve started to get the feeling, as they delved into the more, he didn’t want to call it poorer parts, since he didn’t think there were poor parts in Asgard, but they were definitely poorer than the rest. Regardless, when they got to those parts, Steve started to get the feeling that Loki was liked more here than he was elsewhere. It wasn’t just that he was called upon more, it was the way they greeted him. They smiled at him, the children ran to touch his cloak, it was all very welcoming instead of the mulish looks and distance the others kept between them.

“So these people are farmers then?” Steve started with.

“Farming is one of the backbones of Asgard,” Loki said. “Without the crops, or the animals, we wouldn’t be able to have the bountiful feasts we do. Nor would we be able to trade with the other realms. Asgard is prized for its quality. We may not have the most efficient or beautiful weapons. Our magic is not so plentiful. But we are damn good at what we can do.”

They ended up buying a donkey. A creature Loki fawned over a great deal, and Steve quite liked too, up until he started sneezing so much the poor thing started getting scared. After that, Loki had it walk a good few steps behind them as he tried to combat Steve’s allergies before they came out of his mouth.

“I don’t know why you bother,” Steve said. “You can’t heal me every time I get sick. It’s not possible.”

Loki scoffed. “I highly doubt that.” He flicked his fingers to catch another sneeze in Steve’s throat. “I know you’re not dim. You’ve seen the lack of illness running around Asgard. The last plague we had was over several hundred years ago. I can fix you. It’s just a matter of how.”

The tour went on, with Steve seeing the dock workers, and just how familiar their work was to that Steve was used to. They went out on boats, just like humans did, no magic, no nothing, just spending all day out on the vast calm sea that belonged to Asgard. Then, at the end of the day, they came back, unpacked and went home. There were differences. But excluding the minute details like the size of the fish and the fact they didn’t use any machinery, it was all familiar.

The Bifrost, with some sciency stuff that Steve didn’t even try and understand, was next, and then the forests that, somehow, lived around the edges of Asgard. There were warnings for Steve not to go near them without either Loki or Thor present. The wildlife in Asgard were as hardy as the people, and if given the chance they will kill Steve without so much as breaking a sweat.

The warning, as welcome as it was, also told Steve something else. That being that Steve was going to be here for more than a while. Loki was planning on keeping him long enough for Steve to get acquainted with Asgard. This wasn’t just a short visit.

“What do you want with me?” Steve asked as they started on their way back. “Really Loki, why am I here?”

“Many reasons,” Loki said. “But, mainly because I can trust you. And my trust is not something that is given lightly.”

“I’m honoured?” Another not answer. “But that still doesn’t answer my question.”

“No,” Loki mused. “And you’re probably not going to get one for a few days. At least until I figure out how to heal you. Tell me, is there any part of your body that’s actually well?”

That Steve at least could make sense of, and listed every malady he knew he had or had ever had to Loki who took it with wider and wider eyes until he was practically murmuring questions to whoever a God prayed to about just how and why Steve was still standing here.

Loki took him to a room across from his own. Steve’s room as it would be known as. Not that he used it. As soon as Loki’s servants brought food he was knocking on Steve’s door and telling him to eat his fill. He was still there as dark came and Loki started looking through his books, asking in more depth about what this or that illness was that Steve had once upon a time.

The same happened the next night. The one after too. The fourth night Thor was there again, pilfering food from Loki’s plate and starting on some tale that he and his friends had gotten themselves mixed up in that day.

“I must introduce you to them Steve,” Thor said. “They are most curious about you.”

“Don’t know why,” Steve said. “I’m nothing special.”

“Neither are they,” Loki said. 

There was a little bickering as the two of them debated the merits of Thor’s friends. It sounded to Steve like there was a little jealousy on Loki’s part, but then, all siblings were jealous of the people that tried to take the other away from them. Steve knew, if Bucky hadn’t made Steve an integral part of his sisters lives they would probably resent him a little. 

It was decided, after Thor had, at least he thought, won that argument, that Steve would meet them at the tavern at the weeks end. “Then Steve will decide for himself whether to believe your opinion or not.”

The fifth day, Thor was there again, but instead of sitting and eating, at least for Steve, he was face down on an examination table as Loki ran his tingly fingers all over. “I know you have magic,” Steve started, “But I don’t think even that can completely heal me. You’re just wasting your time.”

“Nonsense,” Thor called before Loki. “Healing may not be Loki’s most proficient form of magic, but he definitely has the capability in healing your delicate Midgardian body.” Somehow Thor always knew the correct tone to use to stop his words from becoming insults. 

Loki hummed in agreement before Steve could complain again. “Still,” Loki said. “I think, in order to truly prevent your body from reverting once I’ve healed you, we need to look at something a bit more powerful than my magic alone.”

“You don’t trust in your abilities?” Thor jibed.

Loki huffed, “I do. What I don’t trust is Steve’s body. It has the horrible ability to defect. I heal one thing and it makes another. It’s like it doesn’t want to live.”

“My Ma always did say I was surviving more on willpower than actual health.” He’d thought before she’d been joking, but now, especially when Loki was basically agreeing with her, he didn’t really know.

“Your mother sounds like a smart woman.” Loki lingered on one point in Steve’s back. “Your heart.” He sighed. “No tavern Thor, bring your friends here if you’re insisting on them meeting Steve. How is this thing still working?”

“You er,” Steve stumbled, “Found the murmur huh?”

“I don’t know what that is but your heart is beating quite irregularly.” Steve heard him consulting a book, the one that Loki had filled in long ago about Midgardians. Back when Asgard still made contact. It had notes on physiology as well as a few other habits that were quite outdated now. Nevertheless, it helped Loki get a better idea about what he was working with, and since Steve was no doctor, he didn’t want to say anything against the book that was probably going to help save his life. Right now, Steve had no doubt Loki was checking just what the regular beats per minute were for a human heart. “That’s it,” Loki decided. “First thing tomorrow we’re going to the dungeons.”

“You think the prisoners can help him?” Thor asked.

“I think there’s some things about Asgard you, dear brother, don’t know about, that I do and that the dungeons is our best bet in getting Steve in good health.”

He didn’t quite like the idea of the dungeons, images of dracula’s castle coming to mind along with other horrors Bucky had read to him over the years. The dungeons were always decrepit, full of evil monsters that could probably be real. Maybe Asgard would surprise him again in this respect.

The examination went on until Loki declared Steve a walking corpse and tried to feed the illness out of him. 

Sleep, he didn’t remember getting, but he woke up the next morning still in his larger than life bed and Loki tossing clothes his way. Breakfast, and almost two weeks here, was starting to see Steve filling out a little more, and by that he meant his bones weren’t completely on show anymore. Then when Thor smothered Loki with goodbye kisses the two of them almost tussling with how rough they were with each other, they were off to the dungeons.

There wasn’t really a stark change between the dungeon level and the rest of the palace except the lack of windows. Down here, there were no glimpses into the outside world, just darkness and candlelight. Surprisingly Asgard had something like electricity in its realm, but they preferred candlelight and the lack of reliance on one source of energy so it was mainly used on the lower levels. 

“You and Thor seem close,” Steve said as they stepped lower into the palace. Down here, Steve could hear the clang of soldiers and the buzz of bright lights. Criminals weren’t far from them now.

“We… have a complicated relationship,” Loki decided on.

“It’s sweet,” Steve said. “Where I come from, guys don’t really bother with all the mushy stuff when they get older. Not with their brother’s anyway. Sisters are different.” He’d seen Bucky smush his sisters in kisses just to spite them more than once. It was just something they did, a term of passive aggressive love that Steve could never hope to understand as the only child he was. “It’s nice that Asgard doesn’t think the same.”

Loki was quiet, leading Steve down another flight of stairs and away from the first floor of criminals. “Showing emotion doesn’t make you less of a man. Family comes first, or it should. It’s never really been an issue amongst our people not to show affection if it’s warranted.”

“It’s nice.” It made Steve feel less like an idiot for hugging Bucky all those times, or letting Bucky slip in next to him, despite the fact they were both grown men. If Asgardians, a tougher race, that much Steve knew from the brief time he’d spent here, didn’t hold stock in stupid things like ‘appropriate behavior’ then he wasn’t in the wrong, Midgard, or Earth, was. 

“Yes well, perhaps don’t mention every night you’ve seen Thor in my chambers to his friends tomorrow,” Loki suggested.

“... okay.” They went down onto another floor, this one larger than the last. It was different too, no gold in sight but stone instead, almost cave like in its appearance. “Is this still the dungeon?”

“Yes,” With the topic off Thor and Loki’s relationship, that same teacherly tone came back into Loki’s voice. “There are three tiers to our dungeons. The first, the ones we use, are the common dungeons. They were built along with the walls that form the outer shell of this palace. When father had the nine realms under his thumb. They’re powerful enough to house any creature, great or small, and only those with a death wish, or with the knowhow to do so, would be able to escape them.” He gestured to the walls around him, “This part is a less known but still talked about part of the palace. I bet Thor would still remember them if asked.”

Instead of going further down like Loki had been intending to bring them, he backed up a step, casting a glowing orb further inside until Steve could see the mighty chains great and small with weird square writing embed into the walls. 

“These are the dungeons that were created when my father was young. When his brothers were still called brother and my mother was another enemy. When Odin first walked the realms he sought out the other races out of curiosity. It was only when he saw how much greater they were than he that he returned. This time with an army. He wanted what they had for himself, and so waged war on them. This is the level he housed them in, those he plucked on the battlefield in hopes of gaining insight to their powers, and eventually their battle strategy.”

Four wars Odin had said. The long years showed in the walls, the scratches that probably spelled something about their imprisonment, and stains that were signs of dried blood. “I take it we’re not dawdling here.”

Loki grinned, stalking back to the stairs. He led them down, and this, the last level, was different and more gruesome than Steve ever thought it would be. 

They came out into a meadow. Strangely enough.

The meadow was lit by linchen on the walls, as well as some light source that Steve couldn’t identify as anything else but magic. Flowers and trees bloomed wildly all over, their colours vibrant in the muted shadows. It was beautiful. Until they got to the centre of this level. There, amongst the wildflowers, was a well.

“This is Mimir, my father’s most trusted adviser,” Loki introduced. 

The head he indicated blinked in acknowledgement. 

The severed head. 

Loki indicated to the others, “My grandfather, Bor, grandmother Bestla, and my uncles, Vili and Ve.” They didn’t look like bodies. Not in the sense that they had shrunk in on themselves. Their wounds were still there, and their limbs deathly still, but there was a vibrancy to them that suggested they were merely sleeping. 

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re dead,” Loki said simply. He went on when his joke fell flat. “The magic keeps them intact. This well is magic, the direct portal to Yggdrasil itself. It cannot be contained, merely hidden, and were my father to have his way, it would never have been found at all. However, I’ve never been one to ignore a locked door, or stairs that supposedly lead to certain death so here we are.”

“And this… this magic. It’s going to heal me?” Since that was what Loki had said. They were coming down here to find a solution to Steve’s problems. 

Yet Loki said, “Not exactly,” and led Steve away from the massacre of Odin’s family to where the trees grew thicker. “See, before my father discovered the secret of immortality, or the equivalent of it, he needed a substitute. Part of the reason he waged war in the first place was to get this secret, for while my father withered and died others of the nine realms did not. The giants of Jotunheim are the only truly immortal beings in existence. Immortal being that, so long as they are not killed, their lifespan will last until Ragnarok itself. But we will talk more of them later.” 

The trees seemed to bow closer to Loki, their branches stretching, almost inviting the flowers and fruits upon their branches to be plucked. Steve was reminded of his sunday school when one stretched towards him. A garden of unimaginable beauty. Immortality. An orchard full of fruit so golden and beautiful it had to have a catch.

“The others were the Vanir. My mother’s people age slowly. Their lifespan crosses millenia. So long that it appears immortal, yet they too have an expiration date. But it was long enough to pique my father’s interest, and with their other talents towards magic and the similarities in features, it seemed only right to go after Vanaheim instead of Jotunheim.”

Loki came to a stop in front of a random tree, plucking a golden apple to inspect before tossing it to Steve.

“However, in order to actually win a war against this long living race, he needed to extend his life, and when Odin asked, beloved as he was of the Norns and Yggdrasil, it provided for him. They gave him this orchid, and the apples within. They have the properties to change ones body. Elongating it, nourishing it. However, in order to sustain such a thing, you must continue to eat the apples on a regular basis. They should be the answer to our problems.” 

An apple. Could it be that easy? “How often?”

“Once a month.” 

Month? That wasn’t that often at all. “I don’t know. This seems, shady.”

“Most definitely,” Loki said. “If I were in your shoes I would probably not take it. But, that’s because I know my character better than you do. However, these apples are the answer we need. That I need. And you’re probably going to die at some point. Better it be on the hope of getting better than wallowing in your own sick misery.”

The worst pep talk possible, but Loki did have a point. It was better to die in hope than without it, and right now there wasn’t much for Steve to be hopeful about. If he didn’t take what Loki was offering him, then what? Loki wanted him here for a reason, and as shady as that reason was appearing right now, at least it was interesting. 

Without the apple, Steve would probably be sent home, back to his life in Brooklyn. He loved his home, don’t get him wrong, but, right now there was nothing for him. No job, since no one wanted to hire a sickly kid like him. No friends since Bucky was off to war. No family. The only thing he’d wanted was to sign up in the hopes of getting at least one of those things back, but, by the time the army was desperate enough to consider a guy like him, it would probably be too late. Steve remembered the last war. He wasn’t really alive for it, but he remembered the aftermath. The stories from Europe about how barely any men came back. Steve wasn’t that lucky. There was no way Bucky would come back from this, which left Steve with what? He’d be kicked out of his apartment again with no money to his name. He’d end up on the streets, and with no medicine and no walls to keep the worst of the chill out Steve would be dead before next winter.

Here, Loki was giving him a chance. A once in a lifetime chance. There were monsters here sure. But it sure as hell was more exciting than anything else that had happened to him.

“How much do I eat?” Steve asked.

“Down to the core should do.” Loki had the grace not to look like the evil stepmother from Snow White as Steve took that first bite. No exciting stare or eager expecting words. 

The apple itself just tasted like an apple. Nothing odd or weird on the tongue. Just an ordinary apple. When he got down to the core Loki tossed the seeds to rest of the orchard, the two of them waiting for a moment longer before Loki asked, “So?”

Steve shrugged, “I don’t feel any different.”

They waited a few moments more, and when the answer was still the same they started back through the meadow to the higher tiers. 

It was subtle. So subtle at first that Steve didn’t even notice it until they got to the higher dungeons. He wasn’t out of breath. In fact, he took the steps with a bit more vigor, oh God he could breathe. Really breathe too. Before it was like something had constantly been pressing on his chest. But now, as he scaled another flight, even overtaking Loki, good God he could breathe.

Loki was looking excited as he joined Steve on the first floor. “We’ll give it a day. Then tomorrow we’ll start your training.”

“Training?” So that was what Loki wanted him for. “You finally going to tell me what’s what then?”

“This evening,” Loki promised, and took Steve to the training yard to watch the warriors for the rest of the day.

He should have, in perspective, been watching what was going on with the warriors more closely than he did. However, with this new abundance of energy, the fact he could breathe without wheezing and he was sure his heart hadn’t been this happy since, well, never, he was a bit preoccupied. Then there was the whole reason he was here. Needless to say, he wasn’t thinking about that whole ‘training’ thing except in the terms that it was in the future and he wasn’t in that future yet.

Thor caught up with them as the day faded, tackling Loki in one of the hallways and carrying him out of spite all the way back to his rooms. Little did Thor know, only seeing the back of Loki’s head, that the little forms of aggression weren’t mean at all. Loki probably hadn’t even intended to walk back to his rooms on foot, what with the way he’d been dawdling. Thor was falling right into Loki’s trap. Something he probably did a lot.

It was fish tonight, and low singing in front of the fireplace before Thor retreated to Loki’s bed to sleep. When his snores filled the air at last, Loki flicked his fingers, the doors locking and a sense of pressure filling the room. “We won’t be overheard,” Loki explained, pouring both of them a drink.

“Answers?” Steve guessed.

“Answers.” They sipped their wine for a while, long enough for Loki to get his thoughts together. “My family has been keeping secrets from me. Not Thor,” Loki assured as soon as Steve glanced towards the bed. “I don’t think he could keep a secret if he tried. But my parents… the king and queen, they did.”

He didn’t say anything more. Then again, Steve didn’t think he had to. The signs were all there. The corrective use of his parents titles. His looks compared to the rest of his family. Even when they met, Loki had said he was the ‘rightful king of Jotunheim’ a saying that, at the time, Steve had cast out as nothing. Later, he’d thought that perhaps this was a realm Odin was planning to gift to his son. Now, “You’re, what, adopted?”

“It would seem so,” Loki agreed, his thumb twirling on the rim of his cup. “A babe stolen from Jotunheim. A prince even, and a useful bargaining chip should Odin ever need one.”

Steve found his eyes flitting to Loki’s, “You don’t look like them.” The giants with their blue skin and red eyes.

Loki looked quickly back to the bed before the image in front of Steve wavered and his skin and eyes became that which Steve had seen in Jotunheim. But on Loki it wasn’t intimidating. Then again, Loki wasn’t keeping him captive. Or, he wasn’t keeping Steve in a freezing cold cell, the kidnapping thing could probably still apply here.

He took a breath, Loki changing back to his pale skin, a look Steve had seen on some of the migrants in New York overcoming his face. “Hey, it’s fine. You’re just different is all. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

“So you say,” Loki rolled his eyes. “Others in Asgard would not agree. But thankfully I’m the only one with knowledge of this information so their distaste can remain open aired still.”

“Well that’s not right.” He tried to choose his words carefully. “Look. I may have not been their biggest advocate. But, that’s just because giants and stuff aren’t exactly something real where I come from. It was a shock is all. Not to mention they weren’t exactly nice to me. But I’m sure not all giants are the same.” Just like all Germans weren’t Nazi’s. “And I don’t think any differently of you.” In fact, he wanted to get another look. Before, his image of those giants had been clouded in fear. He hadn’t the chance or the want at the time, to look over their differences. Now, he kind of wanted to. It was just another shade of interesting. 

“How sweet of you,” Loki deadpanned. “However, I’ll have you know I’ve completely accepted my heritage so your well wishes are not needed.”

“Is that why you were there? You wanted to know who you were?” 

Loki twisted his mouth in contemplation. “In a way. In all honesty I was looking for my mother. I wanted to know what she thought about this whole abandonment thing. But, Laufey, found me, and, he wasn’t too pleased with the idea that I was there.”

“Did he know who you were?” He got that sometimes fathers weren’t too happy with the kids they wanted to forget showing up on their doorsteps. It would explain the whole animosity thing they had between them.

Yet Loki said, “No. He thought I was Odin’s son. I didn’t exactly change my skin while I was there. A fault that was wholly my own.”

“Did you at least find her?” Call him a sap but he wanted at least a little happy ending here.

Sure enough, “Oh I did. But, it turns out it’s a he not a she. Giants are,” he said something that couldn’t be translated, but Steve got the gist since he’d bathed with the guy before. He’d been wondering why Loki crossed his legs when his leggings were gone. With them, he was just as shameless as Thor. Yet naked, Steve supposed he had something to hide. 

“That’s,” weird was on the tip of his tongue. But Steve knew better. Sensitive subject after all. “Different.” On earth he would most definitely have been called a freak. But, Loki wasn’t human, wasn’t even Asgardian and who was Steve to judge him? Him, a skinny kid from nowhere Midgard. It still brought a few questions to mind however. Like, “So why does Asgard hate them? The giants? I mean, you said Odin went after Vanaheim,” he struggled with the name, “Yet you said your mom was from there. Adoptive mom. And, I know the giants are,” Scary almost came out, “Different, but you said there’s other realms too. There has to be differences there as well.”

“A wise assumption,” Loki complimented. “And completely true. There are races in the nine that are far more fearful than the giants, yet it is them that we hate. That I hated too. And it bothered me as well once I learned what I was just why Odin made certain that we feared them. There was a war, yes, but, we only know Asgard’s version of it, and I, a curious scholar, hate the propaganda my father tries to instill in me. It’s why I preferred my mother’s bedtime stories as a child. She always told me the truth, no matter how it made Odin look. So I went looking, travelled, listened, and merely grew more confused.”

He went on to tell Steve about why the Gods went down to Midgard, the story accompanied by magical images that engulfed Steve in the actual scene. It was, extraordinarily terrifying. 

“But the giants had reason to invade Midgard,” Loki said once he’d finished the last battle. “Odin said they wanted it for power, but the giants actually care little for power. That’s because they are power. By cutting them off from Midgard Odin was giving them a death sentence.”

“You said they were immortal,” Steve said. “Truly immortal.”

“When the nine realms were created, they needed something to be the nine realms. Aesir, Midgardians, Vanir, Elves, Dwarves, they’re inhabitants. But the giants, they’re so much more than that. The giants you saw, what I am, we’re- do they still tell those stories about death personified as some creature?”

They did, Steve nodding.

“It’s like that,” Loki explained. “The giants are the earth and sky, the magic in the realms, personified into a person. Those giants you saw were of the ice realm. They are ice as a person, can call it to their whim whenever they wish. Just like the sea Njord commands is full of water giants.”

“So the earth on Asgard, that’s a giant?” Steve cottoned on.

“In a way,” Loki agreed. “A dormant one. All those in Asgard have been put under spells to keep them from making trouble. It’s all part of the plan to downplay the giants significance in the nine realms. See, the giants have power that Odin does not, and Odin does not like the idea that there are things out there more powerful than him. Therefore, in order to neutralize this threat, he spells those in other realms to sleep, and cuts the giants in Jotunheim off from the other realms.”

“But…” Here Steve got a bit confused. “You were worried when you heard that there was a portal to Midgard. You closed the portal. If it’s not a bad thing for them to be going to Midgard-”

“Oh but it is,” Loki hurried. “Now it is. The giants are weak from their imprisonment, and because they’re weak they’re extremely angry. If they found their way to Midgard they would raze your world to the very core of nature itself. Your metal cities would be destroyed, your people killed. The giants would wake their siblings and gain whatever power they could. While it pains me that Jotunheim is desperate enough to come to that eventuality, it has, and so I had to close the portal.”

Which explained their meeting, but not what Steve was doing here. “So training?”

“I have an… opportunity,” Loki decided upon, “For you. One which my father has wholly agreed to. You see, once upon a time, father had a representative of the whole nine realms at his table. These days he prefers the company of Aesir men. However, with Midgard’s recent advancements, should father ask Heimdall about it, I’m sure he’d waste no thought destroying what little progress your people have made. Which is where you come in. Father needs someone from Midgard to,” Loki deliberated on it for a moment before deciding on, “whisper poison in his ear essentially. You downplay Midgard, you tell me what they’re talking about in their council room and I reward you with all the luxuries an ambassador can hope for.” 

Something still didn’t sit right with him about this. “You want me to spy on them?”

“As well as protect your own realm,” Loki nodded. 

“And, as I’m spying, is there anything in particular I should be listening out for?” After all it seemed a bit of a stretch to get from Jotunheim to ambassador. 

Sure enough, “Father’s been talking for a while about abdicating some of his duties. I want to know what I’m getting. More importantly, I want to know what he knows about me. I don’t believe for a second he didn’t know who I was. Mother… she’d tell me, I think, if I asked. But mother’s as far removed from his inner circle as I am. I doubt she would know what was going on in father’s head the day he stole me.”

Christ Almighty what was he getting into. “Your dad’s really going to go for this?”

What little melancholy had etched its way onto Loki’s face vanished in an instant, replaced instead with those same calculating eyes that had sized Steve up the moment they’d crossed paths. “Of course. He misses his darling Midgardian’s kissing his ass, and you, pathetic as you are, are a prime example of what we’ll say Midgardians have evolved to.”

“Right.” Well at least his sickly fram was good for something. 

They talked a bit more, Steve listening to Loki make his case further about how good of an opportunity this was for Steve. It got late enough that he suggested just staying over, it wasn’t like there wasn’t enough room in the bed.

That night, ending up between Thor and Loki again, he was finally hot for the first time through the night. His feet weren’t freezing so much they kept him up when he tried to keep some distance between the two. Thor, instead of being Steve’s heater for the night, was just a warm body to lie beside. One that he was content with keeping distance between.

He slept well too. No wheezing. No coughing, or sneezing. No aches. No nothing but sweet dreams of him and Bucky on some wild, uncomprehending adventure. He had a feeling, when he woke, that Loki had suggested Steve stay overnight so he could see if the apple would do it’s work. Loki sure seemed pleased when Steve told him he’d never had such a good night's sleep. Even more when he flicked his fingers and no maladies reared their heads.

“So I’m okay?” Steve pressed as they walked a step behind Thor to the training yard.

“You’re healthy,” Loki agreed. “Which is a good starting point. You’re young enough too that your body will adapt to the changes the apple produces fairly easily.” Another good thing Loki thought, and Steve agreed with him until he realised that when Loki said training, he meant training.

Steve had thought, when Loki was speaking about being an ambassador, that he was going to teach Steve how to speak nicely and then run for the hills if things went south. He didn’t think that Loki would be handing Steve weapon after weapon to gauge Steve’s opinion on them. But then, a warrior race was a warrior race. Maybe they wanted to make Steve indebted to them as much as they could, and teaching someone to fight was a skill anyone could surely need at least one time in their life.

“What about the hammer?” Thor suggested, trying to sway Loki into the more heavier weapons, his own, a rather impressive hammer too, dangling between his thighs. “It would certainly be easier for me to teach him if we have the same weapon.”

Loki huffed, but handed the hammer Thor had been eyeing over to Steve. The weapon, like the others, were all too heavy for his weak arms. It dragged him to the ground with a clang, and only tugging on it with both arms did he get it upright to do what Loki had told him to do. First, he had to see how it moved, which meant swinging it side to side. Steve wasn’t so sure he liked the heaviness, it was a bit like the axe, a bit too careless on the heavy end. All it would take was one wrong swing on Steve’s end and someone could get hurt. Which was the point, but not if it was the wrong person.

“I don’t think so,” he handed it back, avoiding Thor’s disappointed eyes.

“A knife then,” Loki handed over, a salacious grin accompanying it.

This was heavy too, but not overly so like the hammer. Steve could hold it without falling over. He could move it more easily too, he had more control. But, “I don’t like how short it is. I’d have to get in close with a knife right?” He’d seen them used on the streets a few times. If Steve had to get that close to an enemy, he didn’t like how the fight was going. “Do you have anything longer, but, I don’t know, not as heavy on top?” God he sounded like a right idiot. At this rate there wouldn’t be any weapon he could use.

Yet, a considering look was passed between the brothers. “I think I may have an idea,” Thor said, hopping off his seat to fetch something from the armoury.

When he returned, there was a mighty spear in his hands. It reminded Steve a bit of Odin’s, the one he’d used to fish his swimming shirt out of the lake with during Yule. Yet this one was considerably shorter, silver too to Odin’s gold. It was still beautiful however, with runes, as he’d come to know them, engraved along the hilt.

“Try this,” Thor handed over.

It was around the same weight, if a bit heavier, than the knife. Not overly so again, yet not heavier on one side like the hammer or the axe. “A spear,” Loki started, running his own hands along it, “A real spear, should be balanced in the wielder’s hands. They should be able to use either side in combat, especially if the spear is double sided.” He looked back to Thor. “It looks like Steve will be needing lessons from dear Sif.”

“Looks like,” Thor agreed. “That is, if you want it?”

He swung it slightly, Thor and Loki keeping well out of reach. “It’s certainly the best one you’ve given me.” He liked it. 

“With a spear comes a shield,” Loki said. “Usually we use the spearmen to form the shield walls, so you will need to learn to use that too.”

“Oh, er.” He’d seen the shields these people used. Big heavy things that were sure to make his arm collapse. Yet Loki was adamant and decided, so Steve had no choice.

With the weapon of choice decided, Steve finally was introduced to the main event. The actual training. 

For starters, to build up muscle and improve his endurance, Loki led him on a run around the edges of the field. 

Even with the apple Steve was out of breath, and for a moment he thought perhaps the apple had failed him. But, it turned out when Loki looked him over, that he was just unfit. “You don’t become a warrior overnight,” Loki said, letting Steve catch his breath, before slowing down and starting again on their run.

Thor took him through some beginner moves. Mainly just a series of steps that were vital to any warrior regardless of their weapon. “Every movement is the same no matter what. You lunge, or you fall back.” 

Then after, when Steve was drowning himself in the water at the refreshments table, Loki started on his overall strength. Push ups, sit ups, wrestling, lifting, things him and Bucky used to do when they were fifteen and wanted to, for Bucky, impress the dames, and Steve, he just didn’t want to look like a corpse.

Steve was on his back, gasping for air as Loki splashed water on his face when the frigid air was cut off by a wall of bodies. Steve wasn’t too upset, not even if he was going to get laughed at again- it turned out Asgardians and Midgardians had picking on the runts in common. 

“This is Steve then?” One of the shadows said.

“It is.” There was a clipped note in Loki’s tone. One Steve connected to the only other people he’d used that tone with. These were Thor’s friends then.

Steve tried to sit up, making out three larger than life men and a girl so gorgeous she could give that Lady Freyja a run for her money. It was strange, but even these guys, slimmer than the others on the field, or in the red heads case wider around the middle, there was still something about them that screamed brawn. Different to Loki, for as fit as he was, looked like a strong wind would blow him over. 

Or maybe that was just because they were looming over Steve.

A hand reached down to help Steve the rest of the way up, steadying him before adjusting his grip until the hand was on his arm instead of his hand. The shake was still the same, the greeting familiar, just the way it was given a little different. “Fandral, the Dashing. Good to meet you.”

“You too,” Steve said, trying to get his hand back. “So, you’re all Thor’s friends?”

“His greatest companions,” Fandral agreed and introduced the rest of his party. 

Only one held Steve’s interest however. “Sif?” She nodded. “Thor said you could help me learn how to use a spear.”

“Did he now?” There was no hostility. In fact, she seemed overjoyed at the idea Thor had said that. “I admit, I do use a spear on occasion. But mostly I use a double edged sword.”

“Don’t be so modest,” Loki sighed. “She’s great. Even I can admit that. And if we’re going to get you fighting fit, we may as well get help where we can.”

Steve pretended not to note the hostility between them, and instead asked Sif about just what learning to use the spear entailed.

It turned out it was quite a lot.

The three men wandered off to find Thor when their attention had dwindled. But Sif stayed, and through what had to be a monumental amount of effort, Steve saw Loki take a step back and let Sif start on some of the hand exercises Steve would need to master.

“It’s not quite like using a knife, which is why Loki’s pouting over there,” She said twisting Steve’s hand between her own. “If it were he wouldn’t even be letting me near you.”

“Yeah well,” He spared a glance to Loki, “I don’t really care who’s teaching me, so long as I can actually hold a spear by the end of it.”

“Oh you will,” The confidence was definitely helping. “What people don’t like to hear is that some people, like girls, take a bit longer to build muscle. They don’t have the patience for it. People like Fandral and Hogun, they’re trained from children, and only because they showed an aptitude for it. Others are swiftly knocked out because people can’t be bothered to put the patience in.” She gave him a grin. “Luckily, I have a different opinion.”

“Thor too I’m guessing,” Steve said. She was probably one of the few girls he’d actually seen here. That had to be from some higher blond power.

“Thor’s great,” Sif agreed. “But, can be impatient at times.” She cut to Loki too. “Actually it was that weasel over there that helped me when I first came to the palace with a sword. His mother trained him,” She whispered, like it was a scandal.

“My mother is a mighty warrior who bested my father in combat more than once,” Loki said, nose upturned. “It’s only right I learn from the best.”

“And because the swords master kicked you out for your tiny arms,” Sif said. “Thor told me.”

“Nothing wrong with a lady teaching you,” Steve cut in before a brawl could start. “My Ma was the one who taught me how to throw my first punch.” It wasn’t very good, and he got seven more flying to his face as a result but he’d been so proud of it. “She always told me to fight back. Even when every guy around me told me to give up. And I’ve seen your Ma Loki, she’s one tough lady.”

Loki preened a little, but didn’t say anything else as Sif started on another exercise.

It was to be, for the next year, that Steve was to train with Sif for the spear. “A year?” to Steve was a long time. It was a year after all. But Loki just waved it off, and Steve supposed, for him, a year was nothing. 

Wars could be won in a year, Steve had his full growth spurt in a year. Yet to Loki, a year meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

He was fed well, and found out he had quite a big appetite when he was wasting his energy running around all day. Loki was relentless in his teachings. When they got onto the field he slowed down to Steve’s level, but added three more things on top of it to make up for the speed. When Sif finally took over, Steve was already aching. 

Thor, Steve didn’t see much of. Not on the training field anyway, which was strange because Steve thought he would have seen more of Thor here. Yet Thor had his own things to do, his own people to train and train with. Just like Loki did when Sif took over. The pair of them also had their own duties as princes to do as well. They weren’t solely warriors Sif explained. As a warrior of the realm, they either trained all day, or half the day and spent the rest either asleep or working for the palace. Sif and The Warrior’s Three often went on hairbrained adventures, or had court positions, things to make them useful to the crown and keep them out of the usual places a warrior ended up, like in the guard.

“Fandral actually has a place on the council. Security. Which is interesting, but no war master like Tyr.” Volstagg was in charge of the initiates. He appraised those who put their name down and decided who would go forward with their training and who would be sent home. Hogun was actually a Vanir who’d found a sort of ambassadorial role that allowed him to leave whenever he wished for some adventure or another, and laze about when he got back. “Not that he does,” Sif said. “He’s almost always down here or visiting Volstagg’s family.”

“And you?” Steve panted, not knowing how she hadn’t even broken a sweat with how long she’d been talking and attacking him. 

“I’m a lady of the court,” Sif said, “Father’s still trying to find a man for me to wed and hopefully ‘knock some sense into me’. I wish him luck with that.”

“He has a problem with you being a warrior?” Steve tried lunging, tripping on his feet as soon as he did and almost impaling himself on his spear. 

Sif caught him before he did, she set him upright and handed his weapon back to him. “My father has a problem with the lack of female warriors.” She lowered her tone, “At one point, the army was split, everyone did their part man or woman. Now?” She shook her head. “We used to have the Valkyries. I even trained with them when I was younger. Then one day, they go missing. No sight, no sound of them. Soon after that everyone with breasts started dropping out of the army. They thought someone was targeting women. I don’t blame them but it sure makes my job harder.”

“So he’s worried?” Steve had to be honest, he didn’t quite like this idea of these Valkyries just up and disappearing. It sounded shifty. He would have to ask Loki about them.

Sif pushed him back a few steps. “Everyone’s worried. But it’s not going to stop me.”

Sif soon became Steve’s favourite weapons teacher. Loki was good and all, but his snarky face didn’t always help motivate Steve the way it needed to. Besides, Loki was easily distracted. A warrior bending just the right way showed Steve just why Loki was called the God of Mischief. The guy was a devil, and he knew it.

Besides, Sif had interesting stories for Steve. Ones he knew Loki and Thor wouldn’t ever tell him. Like the time Loki turned Thor into a frog. Or when Thor pantsed Loki in the middle of a feast. Little things that showed Steve his first assumption about Thor being this big idiot was completely false. Thor wasn’t stupid, just liked to pretend he was, Sif said. She also said he probably did it to help Loki. He wasn’t always the confident little weasel he was these days. His brains were the only things he had going for him at once, and they weren’t necessarily prized in Asgard.

Regardless, Sif was great, and between her and Loki who knew just the right way to get a skinny kid like Steve fighting fit he was soon starting to see results.

“What do you think?” Loki asked three months after starting their training.

They were in front of Loki’s mirror, inspection day, as Loki liked to call it, well under way as he fed Steve another golden apple. “I think I can’t believe that’s me.” Something Steve had said the month before too.

His skinny ribs weren’t so skinny anymore. Meaning, he couldn’t see them. He had fat on him. Fat. But instead of hanging, it clung in the right places to give him a healthy look. His face had filled out a bit more. His hair. Steve hadn’t thought there was anything particularly wrong with it before. But now, when he felt the strands between his fingers, they felt fuller, not brittle or ready to snap. He made sure to keep it short, the long look working for Loki and the rest of Asgard, but Steve still not so sure it did for himself. His legs, when he saw them, he was actually surprised they were his, and his health? God he’d never felt so good in his life.

Yes, there were days when he needed a good hot bath to get rid of the ahces in his joints. But those were good aches. The kind someone got from being on the go all day instead of shivering to death under a thin sheet.

If only Bucky could see him now.

“What do you think?” Steve asked, knowing Loki had rattled a few things he’d wanted to improve on last inspection day.

This month, Loki did the same sweep he usually did, poking Steve in parts and lingering on others Steve knew he only did to make Steve pout at him. “I think you’re doing fine,” Loki landed on. “Great even. The apple is working. Your body is working. I’m proud of you.”

Of himself more like it. But right now, Steve was proud of Loki too. “Sif wants to start on shield work this month,” He told Loki.

“Does she now?” Loki purred, eyes still not on Steve’s.

He swallowed as gently as he could, not wanting to give Loki the satisfaction. “Said you would want to know.”

“Oh I do.” The heat left, those playful greens back on Steve’s as he clapped Steve’s shoulders. “Just wait, next month maybe you’ll have broadened a bit.”

Shield work to Steve he thought would be just a matter of holding it up and swinging around it. The biggest challenge would be keeping that shield up. But no. Of course it wasn’t. 

They didn’t ease him into it either, like they had spear training. Instead, the first day he was back, Loki, Sif and Thor were all waiting lined up, a wooden shield handed Steve’s way. As soon as he’d grabbed his spear someone lunged at him, and the rest of his day was spent being battered bloody into the ground.

As harsh as their teachings were, they were effective. There was nothing worse than being hit, and Steve had been hit a lot in his life. With the three of them not going on easy on him his reactions were forced to get faster, his swings stronger if he wanted them to make contact. He had to actually use his stances to keep his balance, and figure out how to use his feet to propel himself forward.

He found out he liked the shield after a while. It was useful not only as a defensive object but offensive. After Thor tried to take Steve’s head off with his own shield, Steve started training how to do that move right back. How to throw it off in a way that it would hit someone before he pounced on them with his spear. How to use it as a springboard to gain height over his opponent. 

The shield did indeed broaden out his shoulders as well as his thighs. With how much he used both it wasn’t a surprise. Yet it was to see the results of it in person come three months more time in the slight muscles bulging on his skin.

By nine months, Steve had an okay grasp on both shield and spear. By ten, a better grasp but still a novice compared to the warriors surrounding him. Eleven and Loki started roughhousing him in the hallways as well as the training yard, making a game out of sneaking up on Steve to see how he would react.

His nerves were shot, but with no asthma to hide behind now there was no excuse to tell Loki to stop. 

“A cat! I didn’t even know he could do that,” Steve complained one night. 

Thor laughed as he topped Steve’s cup off. Loki was with his mother for the night, the two of them in the forest collecting mushrooms and poisonous plants for the upcoming Yule. A few months ago Steve would have been nervous to spend time alone, not thinking he was welcome anywhere without Loki. But Thor had changed that for him the first time Loki did leave Steve alone to spend some time with the ‘only woman he’ll actually make time for’ as Thor put it. Some drinking, a night Steve would rather forget and an adventure with a goat later Steve often found himself bothering Thor when Loki wasn’t there. Even when he was there he found himself spending time with Thor. The guy was nice, easy to get along with, and somehow seemed to have tamed Loki in a way no one else could. Hence why Steve was telling Thor his woes.

Yet, “Yes, Loki is very proficient in the art of shape changing. His magic is stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. Often when we were children he preferred living as an animal when one adult or another talked down to him. Mother spent most of her days trying to coax him back to normal.”

“That’s sad,” Steve said, his good mood dropping slightly. Even more when he realised maybe he shouldn’t tell Loki to not use his magic. Even if it was inconveniencing Steve. He probably got told from everyone not to use it. Steve didn’t need to add onto that. 

It was harmless anyway. For the most part. When Loki played fair anyway.

“So, what else can he change into?” Steve asked, getting things on a lighter note, one which Thor was happy to comply with.

He heard all about Loki’s different forms, even how to spot them. Thor really had his brother pegged. “If he’s a woman, he won’t look much different really, just a bit more feminine. That’s if he’s not impersonating someone,” Thor considered. “His snake form almost always has gold inlaid on his back in little patterns. They’ll look like horns. Bull horns.” Loki’s cat form always had the same eye colour as his usual form. His bear was a shade lighter than normal, but Steve wasn’t sure what was normal for Asgard so God help him if he saw a bear. Loki’s wolf was pitch black, his birds sombre but with a hint of gold in their plumage. Overall, Loki liked to be found. Was waiting for it. “But not many people have the forethought to actually take a closer look at him. It makes him more irritable if they simply fall into his trap than if they figure it out and he has to counter attack.”

“He sure is strange,” Steve noted, immediately wishing he hadn’t when he saw Thor’s face darken. “In a good way,” Steve amended. “I can’t tell you how many times I wish I had abilities like him when I was being beat down.”

Thor hummed in agreement. “It has come in handy,” he huffed, still a bit unsure, it appeared, with Steve’s ‘strange’ assessment.

“I told him this too, a while ago now actually, but I think it’s sweet how close you guys are.” He’d lived with them longer now, and while he may have thought Thor had been hanging around those first few days to get easier access to booze and Loki’s hangover spell, or suss Steve out, he saw it now that they really were that close. Thor seldom did anything without asking, or informing Loki about it. Sure, sometimes it got him into trouble, Loki using the knowledge of Thor’s location to cause a bit of mischief, but for the most part they just liked to check in on each other. Make sure the other could reach them if something happened. Thor didn’t try and exclude Loki either, like Steve thought he might. Even with his friends, when Steve had been lingering around waiting to talk to Sif about maybe getting a few more minutes of blissful stretching in before his beating, did he hear Thor talk about asking if Loki wanted to come along to their latest adventure.

“He is my brother,” Thor said, a small smile on his face. “Sometimes it feels like we’re the only ones in our family who cares for the other. Mother and father both have favourites, mother’s more because Loki was being left out than something malicious. Father tried to make it a competition with us. I didn’t want that. Loki doesn’t want that either. Sometimes it’s hard to tell him that though.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with that. He still didn’t know if Thor knew after all. If he knew Loki wasn’t his blood brother. That him being here, being abandoned by their father was because he was a political prisoner and no one had thought to tell him until he found out on his own. So he settled with something else. “Loki told me you guys always shared a room when you were younger. I guess you must miss each other when you sleep apart. I know Buck did when he first moved in. He had his bed caught on the doorframe when I came home from school that next day trying to cram it in my room. He’s probably the closest thing to a brother I ever had.” It wasn’t easy talking about Bucky. His friend was probably dead by now. Nobody lasted long in war.

It made him sick to think of Bucky gone. But Bucky suffering? Being forced to fight in a war that he had no say in? No, let him die and be at peace Steve said. Those Nazi’s were bastards, but so were the people forcing good men to do their battles for them. At least in Asgard they put their own necks on the line.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said quietly.

“For what?” 

Thor floundered for a moment before deciding, “For your friend. I know you miss him. Loki does too, he just has a hard time telling other people he knows they have feelings.”

Steve snorted a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth. And it’s fine. I knew from the moment I met him it couldn’t last. Thing is, I always thought it would be me that left him first.”

“If it is any consolation,” Thor said, pouring a smidgen of strong wine into Steve’s cup, “I’m sure your friend is resting peacefully in his afterlife. I know you Midgardians do not believe in Helheim these days, so whatever you do believe in, I’m certain he’s earned his place there.”

“Thanks,” Steve mumbled quietly.

That next day Steve was introduced to the extended family. The bastards. That word wasn’t used in Asgard, Thor having to ask Steve to explain it before he understood, and when he did, he didn’t see it as a bad thing. Not like the people Steve grew up around would. Sex outside of marriage was frowned upon. It wasn’t uncommon. But usually it was the men who did it and they kept their side piece quiet. Also usually they were someone paid for. Someone who wouldn’t go running to the wife. 

On Asgard however, marriage and sex in general wasn’t as set in stone as it was back home. Here, a guy could sleep with a girl and never see her again. So long as they both wanted it, there was no problem. A guy could sleep with a guy too, something Steve had found out when he’d walked in on a guard reprimanding two servants for humping in the stairwell. Just like a girl could sleep with a girl.

Marriage wasn’t based on money for the higher ups either. Thor was expected to find someone he actually loved and settle down with them. Someone he could actually pledge his heart to. But, if he did and didn’t like them after a while there was always divorce. No sweat really. 

Well, there was. Apparently there were a few rituals they had to perform, but they were completely doable. 

Kids came into the equation at any point during that. Family was important to these people, and so things like bastardy just didn’t apply. Blood was blood, and Thor’s blood happened to be shared with a whole host of interesting people.

Balder was Thor’s youngest brother. He was two years younger than Loki, grown in the sense that he looked like a man, but was currently simpering over some poor girl when Thor and Steve happened upon him like a lovestruck teen. He was Thor’s only true brother Steve found out, since Loki was adopted and the others only of Odin’s. Yet he didn’t look like Thor. There was no golden hair on his head or lovely blue eyes. Instead, they were brown, and while he was huge in the shoulders, he looked more like a startled deer than the lion Thor made.

He was as sweet as Thor however, and seemed to have avoided Loki’s penchant for mischief as he seemed aghast when Steve told him about Loki’s attempt to attack him in the halls. Overall, he was big, lovely and a pleasure to be around. It was no wonder Thor’s friends preferred him to Loki.

Thor’s other brothers were all older than him. “Mother was having trouble conceiving,” Thor explained. “So they asked a family friend to come in and bear a few heirs in case she would never have children.” Not an uncommon thing apparently. Both the threesomes and the surrogacy Steve found out.

Vidarr was the oldest, and currently an ambassador to Vanaheim where he was planning to take over the throne when Njord eventually kicked it. He’d been spending Yuletide trying to put in motion a plan to woo the lady Freyja, and now, rebuked, had retreated home to gather his courage. Hod was the Alfheim ambassador. Odin had him groomed for the throne of Asgard up until the point Hod had gone and fell in love with an elf. The marriage had meant Hod had to give up his right to the throne. Not that he was too bothered he told Steve.

“Father’s not kicking it any time soon. And with the er, well, he was just looking for an excuse to send me off anyway.” 

The ‘er’ being his blindness. A rather nasty incident with a snake. Not that his wife minded. She’d met him when the blindness had already came to be, and Steve had to admit Asgardian marriages really were sweet if the couples truly did love each other.

After Hod came the last of Thor’s brother’s Vali. Vali was Loki’s ‘keeper’. Meaning that it was his job to find the imp once a day and report to their father what it was Loki was up to. “Thankfully it looks like I’m off to the fire demons for a while. With Yuletide coming up father wants his hot food. That means you’re in charge of him while I’m gone Thor.”

All in all, Thor’s brothers were big, kind hearted guys. The kind of whom promised to tell Steve some embarrassing stories about Thor when they met back up again in Yuletide. None of them were like Loki at all. Not slight, or intelligent to the point he made others aware of it. 

Speaking of Loki, whenever the younger brother came up, Steve noticed they all followed Thor’s view of him. He was nice, they said, and they loved him, but they wished he would keep his head down more. It sounded a bit like what Buck and his Ma used to say about Steve.

“How come we didn’t see them last year?” Steve asked on their way to the training field. Since he couldn’t remember any of their faces at the table. Then again, he’d been so consumed with meeting Loki’s father perhaps he had overlooked them.

Yet, “Father sent them to Vanaheim last year while Njord came here. Neither party was very happy, but mother misses her side of the family when the festivities come, and father needed an excuse for my brothers to keep an eye on Vidarr. He has a tendency to start fights when he shouldn’t,” Thor whispered.

“A bit like Odin then?” Since that was all Odin did at Yuletide. 

Thor choked out a laugh, “Exactly like that. Loki’s the same. It’s why father tries to keep them apart. You’ll see this year no doubt.”

He was looking forward to it. 

More training followed when Loki found out they had been walking around instead of fighting. Steve was subjected to Loki’s magic being introduced, he was sure as some kind of reprimand, but Loki would never admit that and when Steve asked, Loki just said that Steve was ready to fight a trickier opponent. Considering he could barely stand upright he didn’t see how that was true, but Loki didn’t revert back to his original hand to hand or knife combat. Now, it was both that and magic.

Yuletide snuck up on them. It felt like it had been mere days since Steve had first met Sif on the training grounds, only now she was telling him about the twelve day break they were getting as Asgard prepared to get drunk.

“I suspect Loki’s going to have you splitting your attention after this. Some ambassadorial work and training. But don’t think because you’re getting half the day off I’m going to go easy on you,” She warned.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” He didn’t think Asgardians knew the meaning of easy.

Loki was already finishing up the last of his trouble for the year, sending servants who had returned to serve for Yule off with notes that were sure to anger the recipient. Thor wasn’t helping to calm Loki down, in fact penning some of them himself. 

“No wonder your mother looks so worn out,” Steve said, “You’re meant to be the good influence Thor.” 

Thor stuck his tongue out, delightfully informing Steve, “Loki has allowed me to take over his duties this year. We figured out that while Loki can’t do his work and I can’t do mine that doesn’t mean we can’t do each others.”

“God help us,” Steve huffed, but going over himself to see the list of things Loki was having Thor do over the coming days.

It wasn’t a lot. Just certain pranks Thor could execute if Loki found someone distasteful. A matter that happened more often than not, and Steve had found was actually warranted. Some people had no respect for Loki, and no matter of a title would stop them from telling the prince so. Yule, with drink loosening their lips, would be torture for Loki since he couldn’t retaliate, so this idea actually was a smart one. 

“I don’t remember this name,” Steve said, his runework, something Loki made him study in the evenings, just passable now that he could make out names. 

“He’s a friend of a friend,” Thor said. 

“A friend of an idiot,” Loki amended. “And he wasn’t here last year. Most of my lovely list was in Vanaheim with our brothers. You were actually here for quite a tame Yule. This time won’t be so quiet.”

“Considering I don’t remember half of last time, I can’t think what else could happen.” Yes he’d been here for the other celebrations Asgard held. But those weren’t like Yule where everyone, including the royal family, were allowed to put down their work for a few days. In those celebrations, Thor and Loki had been stuffed into ceremonial armour, made to write speeches and make nice with the court. They were told to dance and in Loki’s case sing, and only when the older generation had fell into their cups could they grab Steve and take him to the real parties.

“Trust me,” Loki said, “It’ll be an experience you won’t soon forget.”

Yule came with everyone, including Steve, sleeping late. He luxuriated in the lazy morning, the sheets curled around his tired body and the knowledge that there would be food left when he crawled into Loki’s room for breakfast. 

The baths were heaven itself. With training leaving him wanting to go to sleep every time he did get a bath, he’s never had the time to truly appreciate a good bath for a while. Now, he did nothing but enjoy it.

He was soaked and pampered just the same as last year, and when evening came, the three of them made their way to the hall where Vidarr was already trying to pick a fight with one of his brothers. Steve kept close as those huge arms swung their direction. While Thor said Loki had a temper as quick as Odin’s, he wasn’t allowed to use it tonight, and slid in next to his mother. 

Njord and his children weren’t here this year. Back at Vanaheim, it had been everyone’s hope that Odin wouldn’t fall for Njord’s goading and cause a scene. With his son’s instead surrounding him that should have been the case. But, like every parent with their children, especially their grown children who had minds of their own, a fight did break out at some point.

Frigga was just as gracious as she had been that last year. Truth be told Steve hadn’t seen much of Thor and Loki’s parents during his stay here. They were the king and queen, it was only right that they were too busy for Steve. But he did hear about them. Loki, most of all, had something to say about his mother, always singing her praises and telling Steve about what funny thing she’d told him that day. It made Steve homesick whenever Loki told him about her, he missed his own Ma, he wished she could have seen this. She was the one that had believed in magic out of the two of them. She would have loved Asgard.

The times Steve did see Frigga he couldn’t believe someone that exuded calm and loveliness, raised the demons that were Thor and Loki. Balder, maybe Steve could believe. Even now he was the only one not raising his voice to be heard, and was, according to Loki, writing poetry he was going to perform that next night. The older brothers, yeah, Steve could see Odin’s hand in it. But Thor? Thor was Frigga’s, which meant she was on the scene when Loki had been brought into the midst. Since Loki was definitely a mommy’s boy, and Thor wasn’t far off too, she had to be the one to make them the way they are.

Odin, Steve saw even rarer than Frigga. Steve saw him lurking every now and then, like a spectre on the training grounds. Mostly however, Steve saw the birds. He’d thought they were just some of the common birds that lived in any city, Asgard being no different. Yet, when Thor had waved one too many times like a child seeing some beloved parent, he’d asked. 

Odin’s spies. Or, if Steve was to believe Loki, his thought and memory. Apparently Odin had so many he had to split them from his mind, and they became the magnificent black birds that circled the skies. They sometimes went out and collected information from people, or about people. Loki saw them most often when he was up to one trick or another, yet Odin had only tracked him down in person and told him off a few times as a result. Even more proof that they were overcompensating for Loki’s different blood in Steve’s opinion.

The thing he couldn’t understand however, was whether they were crows or ravens. He would kill to have time to draw them sometime.

“You’re an artist?” Frigga asked, listening in on Steve’s speculation to Loki about the matter of the birds.

“Yes ma'am.”

Frigga’s lips twitched at the title. “Why didn’t you say so. Asgard is lacking in creative minds. Odin’s idea of decoration is splashing more gold or weapons onto it. I’m sure you feel different.”

Which led to possibly the greatest discovery Steve had made in Asgard since coming here. It was true that Asgard was lacking in decoration. The only murals Steve had found were in the throne room, and Odin sure did like the look of his own face.

Frigga on the other hand, had a true creative mind, and when she managed to slip away from the festivities, she took Steve to a wing of the palace that she called her own.

Tapestries littered the place, all of them intricately detailed and beautiful. Murals were embedded into the walls of places in Vanaheim. “My home,” She pointed out. “Before I came here. It’s not beautiful like Asgard, but to us, and the young realm we lived in, it was the most exquisite thing we’d ever known.”

It was a hillbank with trees stretching to the sky on either side. There were people living inside of the trees, children, and Steve could guess that one of those were Frigga. “Do you miss it?”

Frigga hummed, “Sometimes. But Vanaheim has changed since I was a child. You’ll find that things aren’t as sweet as how they appear in your memory when you get older.”

Sketches of Asgard were further in, plans he was told. Original plans that Odin had drawn up with his brothers to create this golden palace. The same brothers that were lying beneath their feet.

“Thor’s had an interest in sketching since he was a child. But,” She sighed, “Odin quelled it from creative to the practical. The only thing you’ll find him drawing now is battle plans. Balder comes down with me here the most. He’s helping me with my newest work.”

“What about Loki?” He would have thought Loki would be Frigga’s little pal in this too.

“Loki is more for the performing arts,” Frigga said. “Plays, music, he used to sing while I worked. Still does if he has time. But he’s a bit busy with you these days.”

“Oh,” he didn’t think he’d upset the palace’s status quo that much. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she waved off. “I think it’s lovely Loki has a friend. About time too. He can’t be hanging around Thor all the time.”

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that, so the two of them went on to other parts of the artistic wing.

They were there most of the night, Frigga telling Steve the history of one piece or another. When they made their way back to the hall they took a detour, Frigga showing Steve the library, probably so he wouldn’t think Asgard too uncultured. Although, with how many people she said she’d seen actually enter the place, perhaps that assessment should be revised. 

“There should be some works in your Midgardian language,” Frigga explained. “I don’t know if they’ll be yours exactly, but we did steal them from the Midgardians when we thought they wouldn’t be missed.” It was also Loki’s favourite dwelling after his mother’s rooms, which was probably why Frigga was showing him the library to begin with. He knew when a mother was trying to force a friendship together, God knows Steve’s own Ma tried to do so numerous times with Bucky before she accepted that her intervention wasn’t needed.

The party had devolved into a full on fist fight when they got back. Benches were being thrown, people too, and at the head of the hall Steve could see Odin and Vidarr actually rolling around amongst the drunken slurs of their family.

“Of course,” Frigga sighed, and for the first time since coming here Steve saw the Queen in action.

A frightening sight truth be told.

With no Njord, the games were held between Odin and his sons. Thor, for some reason, wasn’t allowed to compete. “He’s a warrior full time,” Loki explained, not looking too fresh in his swim shorts. For some reason he’d allowed his family to bully him into taking part this year. “For Thor to compete would be him working. So he’s going to sit and cheer at the side with you instead.”

“Woo!” Thor interjected, gaining no favour of Loki as he cheered again. “You’ll do great Loki.”

Loki only hummed, dragging himself over to where the rest of his brothers were stretching themselves off. 

Swimming, it turned out, Loki was rather good at. The cold, obviously, didn’t affect his body, which meant he gained a good lead while the rest of the Odin clan tried to acclimate. He won that one, but not the rest, for even Loki had his limitations, as did the rest of them, as to what they could compete in.

As a result of this, Balder was the one crowned Yule king this year. Since he spent most of his time working the creative arts than the physical, he could compete in all of the games his brothers couldn’t. As prince still of Asgard, he had skill enough to best his family, and with that all tallied together gained the best seat and the finest cut of meat that night in the hall.

Steve didn’t have much of a goal this yule, other than to remember if he went to bed with one of the pretty girls surrounding Asgard. As a result of that goal, and the fact that the servants seemed to be swamping around the royal brothers, always overlooking Steve, he didn’t drink nearly half as much as he did last year. That meant he saw more. Things he probably would have missed if he was trying to drown out the idea that this was actually real and he was here in this make believe world.

Things like the fact not many of Odin’s children actually liked him. Thor, it seemed, was the only one with good words to say about his father, and most of the time he was just saying it to avoid getting into trouble. It turned out, perhaps, that Thor maybe didn’t see his father in the best light either, and was preferring to just keep out of his way, or out of his line of sight, in the hopes that would lead him somewhere in life. 

The realisation that Odin wasn’t well liked in his family shouldn’t have irked Steve as much as it did. Yet there he sat most evenings, listening and watching as one word or another set one of the boys off. Most notably, he saw the looks that were cast Loki’s way. The kind of looks that were surprised for some reason, and it took Steve a while to realise they were surprised at Loki’s silence. From living with the man, and training with him, Steve knew Loki was volatile. He had a temper like nothing else, but most often that temper didn’t make itself known out loud. Yet at Yule, where wine was flowing freely and the boys had an excuse to come to fists with their father’s, Loki was silent, and it probably hadn’t always been the case.

What was more, Steve realised that while Loki did drink, he didn’t drink to excess like his brothers. In fact, he had about the same as Steve before he asked to turn in early. 

Loose lips, Steve thought, as he made his way up the long flight of stairs. He wasn’t stupid, he could pick up things, like the fact that if they were looking, waiting for Loki to go off then this new silence was recent, like this year recent. There was nothing between what had been the rest of Loki’s brother’s last Yule in Asgard and now that could have possibly changed other than the fact that Loki knew he wasn’t family now. 

There was dancing on the fifth day, and that at least Steve could do sober. He loved dancing in Asgard. In Brooklyn, he had to know all these fancy steps, and while it looked nice, and God Steve had wished he could move like Bucky, it kept changing as new dances were created and new fads came into fashion. Steve was still struggling to not step on Buck’s feet when they practiced, which meant dancing in actual halls with actual girls never really happened. When it did, he always got this disappointed look from his partner, a look that was entirely mutual as both her and him wished he was better at this. More than the skinny kid with two left feet.

On Asgard however, with drink making most people fall on their faces, it didn’t matter if Steve was a good dancer or not. Their equivalent of dancing changed like the wind, and it didn’t matter if anyone knew the steps or not so long as they had fun. Sometimes, it was structured and beautiful, the steps so complicated and fluid it looked like they were gliding down the halls. Other times, it was jerky movements, bawdy songs with people clapping their hands over their heads and their feet doing whatever they could to keep the rhythm of the music flowing. All of them left Steve grinning as new faces and new drinks made themselves known to him. 

Right now, there were small pipes tooting loudly as people jeered those on the tables on. Steve spotted Loki and Balder at the high table, the two of them laughing as they locked hands and feet or jumped around to the beat. Loki caught his eye on the next swing, waving over briefly before Hod took his place. Steve breathed a chuckle as he stomped the next chorus into his own wooden dance floor.

Steve felt like he was up there for hours as the tempo changed, the pipes growing strings and the strings drums until the hall was drowning in music and singing. The torches seemed to flicker with a musical beat, their flames rising and falling as mirth was wont to do. 

A cheer and groans went up at some part to Steve’s left. He swung his head to see Frigga and Odin kissing of all things, the boys around them twisting their faces all children did when witnessing their parents do anything romantic. The rest of the hall however, seemed pleased. Even more so when Frigga helped her husband up and over to the door secreted to the right of the throne. 

Loki caught Steve’s eye again, one moment there and the next across the hall and leaning up so Steve could murmur, “What’s going on?”

Loki rolled his eyes as he came up the rest of the way, the brief silence in the music letting Steve accept the goblet thrust his way. “Mother and father are retiring.”

“So?” Steve asked.

“So my brother isn’t the only one known for his amorous blessings. Their absence is basically the go ahead for everyone to have sex. That’s what they’ll be doing anyway.”

Steve did his best not to show his surprise. He still wasn’t used to sex being talked out loud like this. Like it was nothing, and orgies were the norm. “Right.” He saw more than a few people around them start to leave the halls, Loki’s words ringing true as, by the time the music started again, almost half of them had either made their way over to the head table, or went home.

The music was no less loud however, nor the enthusiasm dulled. In fact, with the go ahead from the royal family to have sex and be merry, the enthusiasm seemed to have doubled. So had the dancing, although it was rather changed. The music seemed to have a sultry note to it now, the strings taking a more centre stage. Steve tried not to hear the gasps that started to rise with them. Instead he watched Loki roll his eyes again, and tried to copy Loki’s movements. 

As always however, Steve’s want to give Asgard a bit of privacy and his own curiosity started to overlap. With his head swinging and body turning, he couldn’t help but glimpse at some of the activities the others were up to. So much so that he wasn’t really being subtle anymore.

“You can go join them if you wish,” Loki told him. “I’m sure a few of you remember you from last year.”

“So I did do something then?” Steve asked, not sure until this moment exactly how he’d woken amidst the pile of bodies.

Loki shrugged, the two of them more standing than dancing at this point. “If you call sitting there dumbfounded while Thor sent girls your way something then sure.”

“Oh.” Disappointment weighed a little heavy in his chest. That and relief. He hadn’t missed out as much as he thought he did.

“It’s fine. They thought you were very respectful. Freyja especially. She’d never had a man look so blessed to touch her breasts before in her life.”

He couldn’t help his ears heating up this time. God knows what he’d said to her. He remembered Bucky saying much the same to him last time he’d gotten drunk. Steve hadn’t touched anyone’s breasts, but Buck had made sure to tell Steve how much he’d wanted to, and how he’d been practically making poems about the girl they’d been dancing with. Yet another reason not to drink. 

Steve cleared his throat, trying to wave off his embarrassment. “So why aren’t you over there?” It wasn’t like Loki was without admirers, as low down on the princely food chain that he was. There were a few ladies he’d seen in Loki’s presence blushing and grinning, looking very much interested in Loki’s attention. Something he told Loki so when the man just frowned at him.

“You’ve been watching me then,” Loki said with a grin. Teasing.

“You’re practically the only person I know here. I can’t help it if I look for you,” Steve said, which was true. He’d made acquaintances, something close to friends, but it was Loki he still looked for. Loki he was sure actually wanted him here. Call it bad experiences growing up or whatever, but Steve’s never had too much luck with making friends. He has a tendency to cling onto them when he did make them.

“Sweet of you,” Loki purred, “And no, I don’t think I’ll be joining them tonight. Balder and I have our big debut’s tomorrow, and I don’t fancy singing with a sore throat.”

“Why would you have a sore throat?” 

Loki laughed, “Why indeed?” He grabbed Steve’s waist, and spun him, the two of them starting to dance the night away again.

At some point, Loki asked how Midgardians danced. He only remembered the moves from the last time he’d been on earth, and, needless to say, they weren’t very structured back then. So Steve did his best to teach Loki the steps he could, still accidentally standing on Loki’s feet on occasion.

It was a fun night, and since Thor abstained, a fact he wasn’t very happy about, the three of them ended up passing out in Thor’s room when morning came. 

“Is this about Jotunheim?” Steve heard Thor say, his brain still trying to remember how to wake up. 

“What do you know about Jotunheim?” Loki countered, Steve feeling him stiffen up next to him. How did the pair of them even get onto this topic?

“Just that you went running off after your stint in the treasury. What happened Loki? What are you keeping from me?”

“Nothing,” Loki choked out.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Thor challenged.

“I don’t know,” Loki shot back, “Maybe because I’m untrustworthy.”

There was a heavy sigh, Thor moving off, “You’re trying to pick a fight and I don’t know why. I’m off to find breakfast, when I come back, I hope you’re in a less defensive mood.”

Something was thrown since Steve heard it hitting the door. For the most part Loki settled back into the sheets, Steve feeling the temperature in the room drop due to Loki’s mood. Literally. Steve could feel goosebumps prickle over his skin as the air grew cold. 

“We need to get you another apple before the week’s out,” Loki said.

Steve turned on his side, not even going to try to pretend to be asleep anymore. “Why was he asking you that? Does he know?” He’d thought Thor hadn’t. It sounded like he hadn’t too.

Loki’s mouth twisted, “Apparently someone’s started another rumour after my ‘odd behaviour’ last night. Thor’s been noticing things off for a while though.” 

He wanted to suggest maybe keeping up the act, but, did Loki even know what he’d been like before this revelation? Did he even notice that he was being off? “What sort of rumour is it?”

Loki cracked a shaky smile. “Just the usual.”

What the usual was Loki wouldn’t say, and Steve didn’t know if he wanted to know what people said about Loki. 

Thor came back with a fish larger than Steve himself. He told them both proudly of his adventure trying to capture the thing with his friends before Yule started as they dug in. While fish for breakfast wasn’t what Steve ordinarily pictured, he could see the gesture for what it really was, an apology, both from Thor and from not stopping the rumour in its tracks. Steve vaguely remembered Thor saying it was usually his friends that started them.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this two years ago and I have no idea where it was supposed to go. I think it was supposed to be a Stoki fic? I'm not sure? It seemed a shame to keep it in my drafts though so, I guess, here it is. I might come back to it. I still think about this fic a lot sometimes and wonder what I could do with it, so, who knows.   
> Anyway, comments and kudos are welcome and thank you for reading it.


End file.
